OpenAI's DevDay 2026 paired the launch of a $500-per-month Pro plan with a material downgrade to its existing $200 tier, a combination that drew immediate developer backlash2.
The $500 plan gives subscribers 25x the usage allowance of the $20 ChatGPT Plus plan and access to a new Ultrafast tier for GPT-6 Astra, which promises up to 8x faster token generation in Codex1. Ultrafast support for GPT-6.1 Sol is listed as "coming soon". OpenAI also announced a new version of its Sol model during the keynote.
Mid-tier downgrade
Starting October 30, OpenAI will halve the usage allowance on the $200 Pro plan for ChatGPT Work and Codex, dropping it from 20x the Plus allowance to 10x. The GPT-6 Pro message cap in Chat will fall from 200 messages per week to 100. Existing subscribers retain current limits through October 29 and will receive a grant of 62,500 usage credits, valued by OpenAI at $2,500, that expire on December 31, 2026. OpenAI said it will not reintroduce the five-hour rate limit for $200 subscribers, meaning users can consume their reduced weekly budget at any pace.
Tibo Sottiaux, OpenAI's head of product and platform, previewed the changes on X ahead of the formal announcement. Sottiaux argued that developers would "still get more" done under the new structure. Developer reactions were "expectedly negative," with one quoted response reading, "Ok guys, back to claude. RIP openAI".
Leak-to-launch pipeline
The $500 price point tracks closely with a leak surfaced one day before DevDay by developer Tibor Blaho, who found the string "PROMAX" while reverse-engineering ChatGPT's web source code and inferred a tier priced at $500–$600 per month5. The plan OpenAI formally announced carries the "Pro" label rather than "Pro Max". ANALYSIS Whether the announced tier corresponds exactly to the code Blaho found, or whether a separate Pro Max tier remains in development, is an open question.
The DevDay keynote also included the launch of Dots, OpenAI's persistent agent system powered by GPT-6 Astra4. Bloomberg separately reported the Dots launch alongside the new $500 paid tier.
ANALYSIS The simultaneous halving of the $200 plan and introduction of a $500 tier compresses the value proposition for mid-tier subscribers: users who relied on the 20x allowance must now either accept half the capacity or pay more than double the price to move up.
OpenAI is concurrently seeking at least $30 billion in a pre-IPO funding round at a roughly $1.4 trillion valuation[2].