OpenAI reopens its $200 Pro plan but cuts API credits in half as it nudges users toward pay-per-use

OpenAI is reopening its $200-per-month Pro subscription to new sign-ups but cutting API credits per dollar in half. Subscribers should still get more done than a month ago, employee Thibault Sottiaux claims, pointing to GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna, which shipped this week at half the API price of their predecessors. The 5-hour usage cap is gone for good: subscribers can spread their weekly allotment however they want.

The change signals OpenAI's move away from heavily subsidized subscriptions toward pay-per-use pricing. Microsoft already does this with Copilot in some areas. Over time, API prices should fall far enough "that it makes sense for most to buy usage as needed without there being a significant gap between what you get in a subscription and what you get in the API for a dollar spent," Sottiaux writes. That lets AI labs tie revenue more tightly to the actual value companies pull from AI.

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