New customers cannot buy OpenAI’s most expensive ChatGPT tier right now. The $200-a-month Pro plan has stopped accepting sign-ups while the company works to keep its newest model running for the people who already pay for it.
Thibault Sottiaux, who runs the ChatGPT and Codex product lines, announced the step on X. Pro, he said, leans hardest on OpenAI’s systems, and it is the only tier the company switched off.
He described the change as the narrowest way to keep the widest access open, and said the API, the cheaper Go tier and Plus all remain on sale.
Sottiaux had flagged the possibility a day earlier, calling demand for Astra unprecedented and saying OpenAI was pulling every lever it had. He added that he had never seen growth like this, even after earlier surges, and warned that new Pro sign-ups might have to stop if the pressure held.
OpenAI has not said how long the pause runs or how many people sign up each day, leaving the scale of the surge unclear. It raised usage limits for Codex customers as recently as last month.
Astra shipped on September 3 and has since spread across Pro, Plus, Business and Enterprise accounts.
OpenAI has presented it as a generational jump in reasoning, coding and computer use, and as the opening of what the company calls an AGI era. That framing appears to have fed the rush of upgrades.
