OpenAI pricing and scrutiny

OpenAI’s roughly $852 billion valuation is drawing questions from some investors as the company changes how it sells tools to business customers. (reuters.com) Reuters reported on April 14 that the questions surfaced as OpenAI shifted focus toward enterprise customers and worked to respond to competition from Anthropic. The report attributed the investor concerns to the Financial Times. (reuters.com) On April 2, OpenAI updated Codex pricing so usage is billed by tokens — the small chunks of text artificial intelligence models read and generate — instead of by message. The company said the change applies to new and existing Plus, Pro, and ChatGPT Business plans, plus new ChatGPT Enterprise plans, with some existing enterprise customers still on legacy pricing during migration. (help.openai.com) OpenAI also changed ChatGPT Business and ChatGPT Enterprise to support two seat types: a standard ChatGPT seat with a fixed monthly charge and a Codex-only seat tied to flexible pricing. OpenAI’s help documentation says a workspace can use standard seats, usage-based Codex seats, or a mix of both. (help.openai.com, help.openai.com) The pricing changes push more of OpenAI’s business software toward consumption billing, the model already common in cloud computing and application programming interfaces. OpenAI’s public API pricing page lists token-based charges across its model lineup, including separate rates for input and output tokens. (openai.com) For ChatGPT Business, OpenAI said on April 2 that it cut the price of standard ChatGPT seats by $5 per month and added a Codex seat with usage-based billing. The company said current subscribers would see the lower seat price on their next bill or renewal, with prorated credits applied in some cases. (help.openai.com, help.openai.com) OpenAI’s developer documentation says Business, Edu, and Enterprise plans on flexible pricing can buy additional workspace credits to keep using Codex after included usage runs out. It also says eligible ChatGPT Business workspaces can receive up to $500 in credits for a limited time when team members start using Codex. (developers.openai.com) The investor debate comes as OpenAI tries to turn heavy interest in generative artificial intelligence into steadier business spending from companies, where contracts, seat counts, and usage meters can matter as much as headline product launches. Reuters said the scrutiny reflects questions about whether OpenAI can justify its valuation as that sales mix changes. (reuters.com) The immediate test is whether customers accept the new mix of lower seat prices and metered coding usage. That is the same question behind the valuation doubts: how much predictable revenue OpenAI can produce as it leans harder on enterprise sales. (reuters.com, help.openai.com, help.openai.com)