OpenAI Pauses $200-a-Month Pro Sign-Ups as Astra Demand Strains Systems

The decision was announced on X by Thibault Sottiaux, known as Tibo, OpenAI's product leader for core offerings including Codex and ChatGPT. He said the Pro tier consumes the most capacity on the company's systems, which is why new sign-ups for that tier are being switched off.

"We wanted to take the smallest step that allows us to continue giving the broadest access possible," Sottiaux wrote. Other options remain open, including the API and the lower-priced Go and Plus plans.

OpenAI had signalled on Wednesday that such a move could be coming. Sottiaux said at the time that demand for Astra was "really unprecedented" and that the company was pulling every lever available to meet it, noting he had not seen anything comparable even during earlier periods of steep growth. He said existing users would remain the priority, but warned that new Pro subscriptions might have to be paused if the pressure continued.

The company has not said how long Pro sign-ups will stay disabled, nor how many people are subscribing daily, leaving the scale of the surge unclear from outside. As recently as last month, OpenAI raised usage limits for Codex users, an indication that the strain on capacity is a recent development.

Astra is OpenAI's newest and most powerful model, and the Pro plan is priced at $200 per month.