OpenAI adds $100 'Pro' tier

OpenAI just inserted a new price between $20 and $200 because too many people were slamming into the old jump in one shot. On April 9, 2026, it introduced a $100-a-month ChatGPT Pro plan built around heavier use of Codex, its coding agent inside ChatGPT. (openai.com) The new plan’s main lever is usage. OpenAI says the $100 tier gives 5 times more Codex usage than ChatGPT Plus, and through May 31 it is temporarily raising that to as much as 10 times Plus. (openai.com) Codex is the tool at the center of this. OpenAI describes Codex as an artificial intelligence coding agent that can write code, review it, and complete delegated tasks in the cloud or inside local tools like a terminal or integrated development environment. (help.openai.com) The important detail is that OpenAI did not create a brand-new feature bundle at $100. Its help page says both Pro plans include the same core capabilities, and the difference is mostly how much usage you get before limits bite. (help.openai.com) That leaves the $200 plan in place as the heavy-duty option. OpenAI says the existing $200 Pro tier now sits at 20 times Codex usage over Plus, so the ladder is now roughly Plus at $20, Pro at $100, and higher-usage Pro at $200. (help.openai.com) This pricing change follows another Codex change from one week earlier. On April 2, 2026, OpenAI shifted ChatGPT Business and new ChatGPT Enterprise Codex pricing toward token-based, pay-as-you-go billing instead of per-message pricing. (help.openai.com) Put those two moves together and the pattern is pretty clear. Individuals now get a middle subscription at $100, while teams on ChatGPT Business and ChatGPT Enterprise get a more metered model that scales with actual usage. (openai.com) (help.openai.com) OpenAI’s own Codex pricing page shows how wide the audience has gotten. Codex is now listed across Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Education, and Enterprise plans, which means the company is trying to turn coding help from a niche add-on into a standard part of ChatGPT. (developers.openai.com) There is also a competitive angle. TechCrunch reported that Anthropic has long offered a $100 monthly Claude option, and OpenAI’s new tier gives developers a closer apples-to-apples price point when they compare coding subscriptions. (techcrunch.com) For a freelancer or solo developer, this changes the math more than the marketing. A person who needed more than Plus but could not justify $200 now has a plan that costs $80 more than Plus instead of $180 more, while still keeping the same core Pro features and a much larger Codex allowance. (openai.com) (help.openai.com)