OpenAI adds $100 Pro tier with 5x more Codex usage

If you've been using ChatGPT to write code, you're probably very familiar with the painful price gap in OpenAI's lineup.

The $20/month Plus plan frequently ran out of juice during deep coding sessions. But the next step up was a jarring leap straight to the $200/month Pro plan—a tough pill to swallow for individual builders.

Now, OpenAI has finally filled that crater. The company just introduced a new $100/month Pro tier, built almost entirely to fuel growing demand for its Codex coding tool.

Five times the juice at half the top tier

The new $100 tier offers five times more Codex usage than the standard Plus plan, specifically tailored for longer, continuous coding workflows.

To grease the wheels, OpenAI is also running a launch promo: subscribers get up to 10 times the Plus usage limit on Codex through May 31. Just keep in mind that once June hits, the ceiling drops back to 5x.

Feature-wise, it gets the full Pro treatment. You keep access to the exclusive Pro model along with unlimited runs on the Instant and Thinking models.

Meanwhile, the original $200 Pro plan isn't dead. OpenAI confirmed it's still available behind the scenes, offering 20 times the usage limit of Plus for multi-project power users. Neither tier offers truly unlimited usage, but the limits are now much more granular.

Taking the fight to Claude Code

OpenAI isn't being subtle about why this tier exists: it's a direct counterstrike against Anthropic.

Anthropic has enjoyed massive developer love with its $100/month Max tier and the popular Claude Code tool. An OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch that the new tier is engineered to beat Claude Code on raw value, claiming Codex now delivers more coding capacity per dollar during intense work sessions.

OpenAI also shared some massive numbers to back up the momentum. Over 3 million people now use Codex every week. That usage has surged 5x over the past three months, growing at more than 70% month over month.

Why it matters

For power developers and indie makers living inside coding workflows, this is the pricing sweet spot everyone was begging for. You no longer have to ration your prompts on Plus or shell out enterprise-level cash for the $200 plan. If Codex is your daily driver, jumping in before the 10x promotional limit expires on May 31 looks like a no-brainer.

For the AI landscape, the developer war has officially moved from benchmark scores to pricing economics. Anthropic carved out a cult following with Claude Code, but OpenAI is now matching its $100 price point and aggressively claiming superior capacity per dollar. It puts immediate pressure on Anthropic to defend its turf.

We think this is a sharp tactical play, but OpenAI is walking a tightrope. Launching with a temporary 10x limit is great for user acquisition, but power users get spoiled quickly. When the promotional ceiling snaps back to 5x in June, managing developer expectations around rate limits could turn into a real headache.