OpenAI will not shrink usage limits on its $200 ChatGPT Pro plan, abandoning a reduction that subscribers had been warned about weeks earlier. The company went a step further on October 29 and doubled Work and Codex limits on the $100, $200 and $500 Pro tiers as well as on Business Premium. Monthly prices stayed where they were.
Catch up on AI in 3 minutes a day: 700,000+ readers get The Neuron, a daily email with the latest AI tools, tutorials and news.
We may earn a commission if you sign up.
Thibault Sottiaux, who leads core products and platform work at OpenAI, delivered the news in a post on X. It was presented as one entry in a 28-day run of quality-of-life announcements, which made it read less like a retreat and more like a gift, even though the timing followed a wave of complaints. Android Headlines notes the increase matters mainly to heavy users of Work and Codex, the two products that share a single subscription allowance.
The Pro 200 reduction subscribers saw coming
The trouble began in late September, when an email to Pro 200 subscribers circulated on OpenAI’s developer forum. According to Data Studios’ reconstruction, new Pro 200 customers were to receive a lower allowance, while existing customers would keep the higher one only through October 29, with the reduction starting the next day. Subscribers described the change as a slide from 20 times the Plus allowance to 10 times, a multiple OpenAI never confirmed.
BleepingComputer framed the plan as a 50% cut, and the backlash it covered is what pushed the company to reverse course. Android Headlines, citing that reporting, put the start of the reduction on October 29 for the $200 tier, while Data Studios places it a day later; the sources differ by a day, and both agree the cut was days from taking effect. Scalevise ties the episode to Pro-tier communications from late September, including a message dated September 29 that announced reduced allowances. The gap between that notice and the October 29 reversal was a month, long enough for complaint threads to build, and OpenAI left the multiples out of its reversal post, so the original size of the cut is known only through subscriber accounts and press framing, not through any figure the company confirmed.
The plan at the center of the dispute is the middle rung of the Pro ladder. A $200 subscription sits between the $100 and $500 tiers, and the reversal leaves existing Pro 200 holders with the larger allowance they already had while lifting lower-allowance accounts to match. For the other two tiers the change is a pure gain, since neither was named in the planned reduction.
Doubled Work and Codex allowances across Pro 100, Pro 200 and Pro 500
Sottiaux said OpenAI was doubling all usage limits on the three Pro tiers and on Business Premium, effective immediately, and that after hearing the feedback it would not lower Pro 200 limits, so Work and Codex usage on that plan stays the same. Existing customers receive the new quotas automatically, without waiting for a renewal date or changing plans. By the Data Studios timeline, the reversal took effect a day before the reduction would have started, so affected subscribers never actually saw the lower limits.
Scalevise’s write-up adds a wrinkle: Pro 100 and Pro 500 now carry twice their previous Work and Codex allowance, while Pro 200 accounts that had been slated for the lower allowance are lifted to the higher level. Business Premium seats can use their full existing allowance, according to OpenAI’s own Work and Codex help article as Scalevise cites it.
The $20 Plus plan is untouched by any of this.
Prices are the other half of the story. Data Studios lists Plus at $20 a month, Pro 100 at $100, Pro 200 at $200 and Pro 500 at $500, all unchanged, with Business Premium billed per seat at a price its write-up does not state. Nothing about the doubling requires a higher payment, which is why the announcement landed as a straight concession. Subscribers who were about to receive less for the same $200 instead keep what they had, and those on the $100 and $500 plans receive twice as much without being asked.
Dots keep a separate pool, and the real numbers stay private
The announcement also settled a side question. Dots, OpenAI’s always-on assistants, keep their own usage allowances, so background tasks and texting will not draw down the Work or Codex quota that developers rely on. Android Headlines reported that the higher limits apply mainly to Work and Codex, which share one subscription allowance under a single account, and that Sottiaux said extended dot limits would continue for now.
What subscribers still cannot see is a number. OpenAI documents the Pro lineup on its Pro tiers help page but does not publish absolute caps, so the doubling is expressed only as a multiple of each plan’s previous, unstated limit. A customer on Pro 100 has to take the company’s word that twice an undisclosed amount is meaningfully more.
Two questions remain open in the coverage: whether the higher limits are permanent, and how long the extended dot allowances last. Sottiaux’s own wording on dots, “for now,” suggests OpenAI is leaving itself room to revisit both once the 28-day run of announcements is over and usage data comes in. Data Studios also lists how Business Premium interacts with administrator controls as unresolved. With the post framed as the 25th of 28 announcements, three more were due in the series, and none of them is known to address those gaps.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
Catch up on AI in 3 minutes a day: Join The Neuron →
We may earn a commission if you sign up.
More from Morning Overview
- Ford is recalling 223,472 F-150 pickups because the fuel tank can leak or detach
- Hybrids have 15% fewer problems than gas cars, while EVs and plug-in hybrids have about 80% more, Consumer Reports finds
- Regulators cleared the first U.S. small modular reactor, 4 months early
- Lake Powell sank to a record 3,517 feet, nearing the level that stops Glen Canyon Dam’s turbines