OpenAI opens $100 tier

OpenAI just split its ChatGPT pricing into two lanes: a $20 plan for occasional coding and a new $100 plan for people who keep Codex running through long software sessions. The company says the new tier gives 5 times more Codex usage than Plus. (community.openai.com) Codex is OpenAI’s coding agent inside ChatGPT, which means it can read code, write code, and work through bug fixes instead of only answering one prompt at a time. OpenAI says the $100 tier is built for “longer, high-effort Codex sessions” rather than casual use. (help.openai.com 1) (help.openai.com 2) The jump from $20 to $100 looks big until you see what OpenAI is selling: fewer interruptions. In its forum post, OpenAI says the new plan can run demanding workflows continuously and across parallel projects with limits that go far beyond Plus. (community.openai.com) This is also a direct shot at Anthropic, which already had a $100 Claude plan for heavy coding users. TechCrunch and CNBC both reported that OpenAI’s new tier is meant to compete for the same developer who treats an artificial intelligence coding tool like a daily coworker, not a novelty. (techcrunch.com) (cnbc.com) At the same time, OpenAI changed how Codex gets billed for teams. On April 2, 2026, the company moved ChatGPT Business and new ChatGPT Enterprise Codex pricing from per-message billing to token-based billing, which means charging by the amount of text and code processed instead of by the number of turns. (help.openai.com 1) (help.openai.com 2) That shift matters because one coding request can be tiny and another can chew through a huge codebase. Token billing prices compute more like a cloud service bill, where a short question costs less than a long job that reads files, writes patches, and checks outputs. (developers.openai.com) (help.openai.com) OpenAI also created a Codex-only seat for Enterprise customers, so a company can buy coding access without paying for a full general ChatGPT seat for every user. The Help Center says those seats use flexible pricing and are billed in credits per million tokens. (help.openai.com 1) (help.openai.com 2) The company is widening the gap between individual subscriptions and workplace billing on purpose. OpenAI’s pricing page now lists Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise as separate paid plans, while its Codex pages push teams toward credits and usage meters instead of one flat monthly ceiling. (openai.com) (developers.openai.com) The timing lines up with a surge in coding demand. CNBC reported that Codex run-rate revenue topped $2.5 billion in February 2026 and had more than doubled since the start of the year, after OpenAI first launched Codex in April 2025 and widened access in October 2025. (cnbc.com) So the new $100 tier is not just a price increase. It is OpenAI saying that heavy coding users are now distinct enough to get their own consumer plan, while businesses are being moved onto the same kind of usage-based model that already dominates cloud computing. (help.openai.com) (openai.com)