OpenAI's newly launched $100 ChatGPT Pro plan aims to compete with Claude Max by offering five times more access to Codex.

OpenAI's newly launched $100 ChatGPT Pro plan aims to compete with Claude Max by offering five times more access to Codex.

      In summary: On April 9, 2026, OpenAI introduced a new $100 monthly Pro plan for ChatGPT, creating an additional tier between the existing $20 Plus plan and the $200 Pro plan, directly competing with Anthropic’s Claude Max, which is also priced at $100 monthly. This new plan provides five times more Codex usage compared to Plus, granting access to the same model suite as the $200 tier, along with a launch promotion that temporarily increases that advantage: until May 31, 2026, subscribers will receive ten times the Codex usage of Plus. This development comes after Codex surpassed three million weekly users on April 8, reflecting what the company calls a fivefold increase in three months.

      Details of the $100 plan and its placement in ChatGPT’s pricing structure

      The new plan is the sixth pricing tier in ChatGPT's lineup, which includes a free account with ads, an $8 monthly Go plan, a $20 monthly Plus plan, two variants of Pro at $100 and $200 per month, a $25 per user monthly Business plan, and custom Enterprise contracts. The $100 Pro plan is positioned between the Plus and the existing $200 Pro tier, providing five times the Codex usage of Plus, catering to what OpenAI describes as "longer, high-effort Codex sessions" that Plus users typically max out on. The $200 Pro plan, on the other hand, offers 20 times the Codex usage of Plus, making it four times more intensive in Codex usage than the new $100 tier.

      Despite the differences in usage limits, both Pro tiers share access to the same model suite: the exclusive GPT-5.4 Pro model, unlimited use of GPT-5.4 Instant and GPT-5.4 Thinking, and all features available on the $200 plan. The distinction between the two tiers lies in usage volume rather than capability. As part of the launch promotion, new subscribers to the $100 plan will receive ten times the Codex usage of Plus until May 31, 2026; afterward, the standard limit of five times will apply. OpenAI also revealed a reallocation of the Plus plan’s Codex usage alongside the new tier, aiming to focus Plus on more consistent daily usage rather than permitting longer bursts, which the $100 plan is designed to accommodate.

      Codex demand: the figures prompting the new tier

      On April 8, 2026, prior to the announcement of the $100 plan, Sam Altman shared on X that OpenAI was resetting Codex’s usage limits across all plans "to celebrate 3M weekly Codex users" and pledged to repeat this reset for each additional million users until Codex reaches ten million weekly users. Thibault Sottiaux, who oversees the Codex product, noted: "Three million people are now using Codex weekly, up from two million less than a month ago." OpenAI characterized this growth as a fivefold increase over the previous three months, with a 70% month-over-month rise in users.

      The growth indicates a change in how developers utilize AI coding tools. OpenAI launched a dedicated Codex application for macOS in February 2026, aimed at expanding beyond line-by-line code generation into what the company termed agentic, multi-task coding workflows: managing multiple agents simultaneously, running background tasks, and performing actions over hours rather than seconds. This architecture, which demands longer-running sessions and greater computational resources, aligns perfectly with the usage pattern that the $100 plan aims to capture. Plus subscribers who use Codex for extensive autonomous engineering tasks often reach usage limits well before their billing cycles conclude; the $100 plan is intended to serve as the next logical tier rather than jumping to the $200 level.

      The Claude Max comparison

      OpenAI has clearly positioned the new plan in a competitive context. It is priced the same as Anthropic’s Claude Max 5x tier, also at $100 monthly, which offers higher limits for Claude Code, Anthropic’s terminal-based agentic coding product. Claude Code has quickly become the fastest-growing segment of Anthropic’s commercial offerings, projected to generate $2.5 billion in annual revenue by early 2026, and Anthropic has been building a developer ecosystem around it. In March 2026, Anthropic launched a marketplace for Claude-powered enterprise software, collaborating with partners like Snowflake, Harvey, and Replit to connect enterprise customers with third-party applications built on Claude.

      The competitive landscape intensified in the week before OpenAI's announcement. On April 4, 2026, Anthropic restricted third-party agents on Claude Pro and Max subscriptions, preventing users from routing their usage limits through external frameworks like OpenClaw; those wishing to continue using these tools must now pay separately under a new per-session "extra usage" system. Conversely, OpenAI’s announcement expanded Codex availability at the $100 price point and

OpenAI's newly launched $100 ChatGPT Pro plan aims to compete with Claude Max by offering five times more access to Codex.

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OpenAI's newly launched $100 ChatGPT Pro plan aims to compete with Claude Max by offering five times more access to Codex.

On April 9, 2026, OpenAI introduced a $100/month ChatGPT Pro tier, aligning its pricing with Claude Max, offering five times more Codex than the Plus version and a tenfold launch promotion running until May.