OpenAI launches $500 Pro 500 plan with Astra Ultrafast

OpenAI said at DevDay 2026 that it launched Pro 500, a $500-a-month ChatGPT Pro plan with its highest included usage and access to Astra Ultrafast, while reopening Pro 200 subscriptions with a reduced usage allowance for new customers.

OpenAI is splitting more usage from the fastest tokens. Five hundred dollars a month buys the top Pro pool plus Ultrafast in ChatGPT Work and Codex, while the $200 Pro plan comes back with a thinner allowance for new buyers.

On Tuesday, 29 September 2026, OpenAI’s DevDay 2026 recap introduced Pro 500. OpenAI says the plan offers its highest usage allowance, at 25 times the ChatGPT Plus allowance, and includes access to Ultrafast. Plus is the cheaper paid ChatGPT plan. Twenty-five times means the included pool is twenty-five of those Plus allowances. The recap says the plan is available now. Those lines are on the recap.

The Help Center page on ChatGPT Pro tiers says ChatGPT Pro now offers Pro 500, a new $500-a-month plan that includes Astra Ultrafast. Astra is the model OpenAI names on that speed. The same page says Pro 200 is available for new subscriptions again. A subscription is the monthly plan a person pays for. Those lines are on the Help Center page.

The three Pro plans, as that page lists them. Pro 100 is $100 a month and does not include Ultrafast. Pro 200 is $200 a month and does not include Ultrafast. Pro 500 is $500 a month and includes it. Pro 200 includes more usage than Pro 100. Pro 500 offers the highest included usage of the three. Those prices and that ranking are on the Help Center page.

Among Pro plans, Ultrafast is available only on Pro 500. A person selects it in the model picker. It uses the plan’s included usage first, then draws on a credit balance after that allowance is used. At launch, buying credits on Pro 100 or Pro 200 does not unlock Ultrafast. Those lines are on the Help Center page.

What Ultrafast is, as the recap states it. OpenAI calls it a premium speed tier. In Codex, token generation is up to 8 times faster, up to 300 tokens a second. In the API, it is up to 6 times faster. A token is a small piece of text the model reads or writes. Codex is OpenAI’s coding tool. An API is the door a developer’s own program uses to call the model. GPT-6 Astra Ultrafast is available in the API, and in ChatGPT Work and Codex, on Pro 500 and on Enterprise. ChatGPT Work is the work surface inside ChatGPT, separate from ordinary chat. Those lines are on the recap.

What happens to Pro 200. New subscriptions that are not eligible for grandfathering include a lower usage allowance than Pro 200 offered before. Grandfathering, here, means an existing subscriber keeps the older allowance for a set time. The monthly price stays $200. If a Pro 200 subscription was active at the eligibility cutoff, or during the seven days before it, that person keeps the previous included usage through 29 October 2026 while the Pro 200 subscription stays active. After that date the allowance moves to the lower one. Keeping the older allowance does not turn the plan into Pro 500 and does not add Ultrafast. Those lines are on the Help Center page. The page does not print the clock time of the cutoff.

In plain terms, OpenAI opened a $500-a-month Pro plan with the largest included usage of its three Pro plans, 25 times Plus, and with Ultrafast in ChatGPT Work, Codex, and the API. The $200 plan is on sale again for new buyers, with a smaller allowance than before. People already on Pro 200 who qualify keep the older allowance through 29 October 2026. Buying credits on the $100 or $200 plan does not turn on Ultrafast.

The picture is OpenAI’s Ultrafast mode graphic from the API docs. White type reads “OpenAI Developers” and “API Docs” over “Ultrafast mode,” on a pink-to-orange field, with the OpenAI mark in the corner. It is the company’s card for this speed tier.