OpenAI prices and funding moves

OpenAI has split its consumer ChatGPT lineup more finely, adding a $100-a-month Pro plan days after closing a $122 billion funding round at an $852 billion valuation. (openai.com) (help.openai.com) OpenAI’s March 31, 2026 funding announcement said the round brought in $122 billion in committed capital at an $852 billion post-money valuation. The company said the money will support more chips, data centers and hiring. (openai.com) (cnbc.com) On April 9, 2026, OpenAI added a new $100 monthly Pro tier inside ChatGPT. OpenAI’s release notes said it is built for “longer, high-intensity Codex sessions” and includes unlimited access to GPT-5.4, access to GPT-5.4 Pro, and 5 times the standard Codex usage of Plus, with a temporary 10 times promotion through May 31. (help.openai.com) (thenextweb.com) Codex is OpenAI’s coding agent inside ChatGPT, and OpenAI says it is included with Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education plans. OpenAI also changed Codex pricing on April 2, 2026, moving new and existing Plus, Pro, Business and new Enterprise plans to token-based pricing instead of per-message pricing. (help.openai.com 1) (help.openai.com 2) The pricing change gives OpenAI a middle step between Plus at $20 a month and its existing $200 Pro option. OpenAI’s help pages now describe Plus as “for lighter use,” the new $100 Pro plan as “built for real projects,” and the $200 Pro plan as its highest-usage option. (help.openai.com 1) (help.openai.com 2) OpenAI is also drawing a hard line between ChatGPT subscriptions and developer spending on its application programming interface, or API. Its billing help page says chatgpt.com and platform.openai.com are separate platforms, with separate billing systems, charges and billing history. (help.openai.com) That means a user paying for ChatGPT Plus or Pro does not automatically get API credits, and an API pay-as-you-go account does not automatically include a ChatGPT subscription. OpenAI says moving from ChatGPT Enterprise to the API platform also does not carry billing across automatically. (help.openai.com) Outside OpenAI, coverage of the new $100 tier has focused on competition with Anthropic’s $100 Claude Max plan and on heavier coding use as the main target. OpenAI’s own public materials do not name Anthropic in the release notes, but they do frame the new tier around Codex capacity and longer coding sessions. (techcrunch.com) (help.openai.com) The combined effect is a company raising infrastructure-scale money while slicing access into more exact paid tiers. For customers, the immediate question is no longer just whether to pay OpenAI, but whether they need ChatGPT access, API usage, or both. (openai.com) (help.openai.com)