OpenAI reversed itself on Oct. 29, 2026. The company had planned to cut ChatGPT Pro's usage allowance in half, starting the next day. Instead, it doubled usage limits across every paid Pro tier and Business Premium.
Thibault Sottiaux leads Codex and ChatGPT Work at OpenAI. He posted the change on X at 16:56 UTC. "We are doubling all usage limits for all Pro 100/200/500 tiers and Business Premium, effective today," he wrote1. The post landed one day before OpenAI's own cut was set to begin.
A Cut That Lasted One Month
OpenAI announced the cut on Sept. 29, 2026. Pro 200, the $200-a-month plan, would drop from 20 times the usage of ChatGPT Plus to 10 times46. Weekly GPT-6 Pro chat messages would fall from 200 to 100.
The same announcement introduced Pro 500, a new $500-a-month tier with 25 times the Plus allowance and faster Codex speed6. Subscribers who kept Pro 200 active from Sept. 22 through Sept. 29 got to keep their 20 times allowance through Oct. 294. Everyone else who signed up after would start at the lower rate.
OpenAI, based in San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood, framed the change as an efficiency gain, separate from its sticker price. Sottiaux told PCWorld the company wanted to avoid an incentive to "artificially inflate the API list prices" to make subscribers feel they were getting more than they were5. Every tier kept its monthly price. Only the usage attached to it moved.
Subscribers Pushed Back Hard
Zach Moskow founded Concentrate AI, a business that brokers AI model access. He posted a warning on X on Oct. 28, a day before the cut's deadline. "Kind of wild how nobody is talking about this. Starting October 30, OpenAI is cutting ChatGPT Pro usage limits in HALF," he wrote7. His post drew 1,632 likes and 135 replies.
Subscribers on OpenAI's own developer forum called the September plan a hidden price increase. One thread argued that halving the allowance at the same $200 price doubled the real cost of each unit of work. Patterson's reporting, a month earlier, had already noted subscribers canceling their plans in protest5.
OpenAI's reversal post draws 18 times the likes of the warning that came first
Likes and replies on two X posts about the Pro 200 cut, Oct. 28 to 29, 2026
Each pair of columns is one post: the gray columns are Zach Moskow's Oct. 28 warning about the coming cut, and the magenta columns are Thibault Sottiaux's Oct. 29 post reversing it.
Sources: Thibault Sottiaux on X [1]; Zach Moskow on X [7]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Likes | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Moskow, Oct. 28 | 1,632 | 135 |
| Sottiaux, Oct. 29 | 28,674 | 5,196 |
Then Sottiaux posted the reversal. Engagement dwarfed Moskow's warning. The post gathered 28,674 likes and 5,196 replies within hours, and a submission that linked it reached 13 points on Hacker News12.
What OpenAI Actually Changed
Sottiaux's post did two different things, and the difference matters. "We heard your kind feedback and won't be reducing usage limits for Pro 200, so your Work and Codex usage will stay the same," he wrote1. For Pro 200, that is a cancellation. The allowance itself stayed exactly where it was.
Tibo@thsottiauxDay 25/
We are doubling all usage limits for all Pro 100/200/500 tiers and Business Premium, effective today.
We heard your kind feedback and won’t be reducing usage limits for Pro 200, so your Work and Codex usage will stay the same. We’re also going to continue offering…
Pro 100 and Pro 500 subscribers got something new. OpenAI doubled their Work and Codex allowance outright. The baseline for Pro 100 went from five times Plus to ten, and for Pro 500 from 25 times to 5038.
Business Premium seats also doubled, though OpenAI left that tier's exact multiplier out of the announcement1. Every price stayed where it started: $100, $200 or $500 a month6.
OpenAI doubles every paid Pro tier's allowance, up to 50 times Plus
Work and Codex allowance, as a multiple of the ChatGPT Plus baseline, before and after OpenAI's Oct. 29, 2026 reversal
Each pair of columns is one Pro tier: the gray column is the multiple most subscribers held that morning, and the magenta column is what OpenAI set once it doubled every tier that afternoon.
Pro 200 subscribers who kept the plan active from Sept. 22 to Sept. 29 already held the 20x rate; this chart shows the rate OpenAI had set for subscribers signing up after that window.
Sources: CryptoBriefing [3]; Kingy AI [4]; OfficeChai [6]; Cellcog [8]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Morning of Oct. 29 | After the reversal |
|---|---|---|
| Pro 100 ($100/mo.) | 5x | 10x |
| Pro 200 ($200/mo.) | 10x | 20x |
| Pro 500 ($500/mo.) | 25x | 50x |
Sottiaux's post named one more change. OpenAI will keep offering separate, extended limits for "dots." That is the company's term for always-on agents13. They run apart from a subscriber's regular chat and coding allowance. The split lets OpenAI meter and price agent work on its own terms, away from the headline number subscribers watch.
The Reversal's Catch
Some subscribers came out behind. Ben Patterson writes for PCWorld and has tracked OpenAI's pricing since the September cut. He calls the pattern part of something larger: "the big AI providers endlessly tinkering with their flat-rate subscription plans to keep pace with ever-changing and increasingly powerful AI features, particularly the token-heavy agentic ones"5.
A forum member who had already paid for the higher Pro 200 allowance made the sharper version of that case on Oct. 29. The post argued that a canceled downgrade leaves an unchanged workload exactly where it stood9. OpenAI's own post stopped short of claiming those subscribers would see more.
It promised only a hold at the existing rate. The word doubling carried a smaller promise there than it did for other tiers, where the gain was real.
Both readings rest on the same numbers. Pro 100 and Pro 500 subscribers can point to a cap that grew. Subscribers on Pro 200 who held the old rate can point to a cap that stayed exactly where it started.
What to do
Check your own plan's Work and Codex counter before you decide anything. A Pro 100 or Pro 500 subscriber who regularly hit the old cap now has real headroom at the same price. Workflows that used to stall mid-week are worth running again.
A Pro 200 subscriber who already sat at the higher rate should expect the same pace of finished work. OpenAI's own language says as much. A bigger number on a plan page sets a ceiling. Model choice, context and tool use decide how much of it each task spends.
By the numbers
- 28,674 likes: on Thibault Sottiaux's Oct. 29 post reversing the planned Pro 200 cut, gathered within hours1.
- 5,196 replies: on that same post, many from subscribers reacting to the reversal1.
- 13 points: the score of the Hacker News thread that linked the announcement2.
- 1,632 likes: on Zach Moskow's Oct. 28 post warning subscribers about the coming cut7.
- Pro 200's planned cut would have dropped it from 20 times to 10 times the Plus baseline. OpenAI reversed that hours before it took effect46.
- OpenAI doubled Pro 100's allowance from five times the Plus baseline to ten, at the same monthly price38.
- The $500-a-month Pro 500 plan doubled too, climbing from 25 times to 50 times the Plus baseline38.
What to watch
OpenAI's next move on Business Premium is worth tracking, since Sottiaux's post left that tier's exact multiplier unstated13. The Pro 500 tier's 50 times allowance also bears watching past its introductory month. Pro 200's 20 times rate already survived one scheduled cut this year.
Watch for a rival price move from Anthropic or Google. Subscribers threatened to switch during the backlash, so a matching offer would settle whether this reversal buys OpenAI loyalty or just a quieter month.
Sources
- Thibault Sottiaux (@thsottiaux), "Day 25/ We are doubling all usage limits for all Pro 100/200/500 tiers and Business Premium, effective today," X, Oct. 29, 2026, https://x.com/thsottiaux/status/2115850175868727621
- tosh, "OpenAI: We are doubling all usage limits for all Pro 100/200/500 tiers," Hacker News, Oct. 29, 2026, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50292524
- Diego Almada Lopez, "OpenAI doubles usage limits for Pro and Business Premium tiers," CryptoBriefing, Oct. 29, 2026, https://cryptobriefing.com/openai-doubles-pro-business-premium-limits/
- Kingy AI, "OpenAI Cancels ChatGPT Pro Usage Cuts and Doubles Allowances: Plans and Pricing," Kingy AI, Oct. 29, 2026, https://kingy.ai/blog/openai-cancels-chatgpt-pro-usage-cut-doubles-allowances/
- Ben Patterson, "ChatGPT Pro's biggest perk just got cut in half. Meet the new AI subscription math," PCWorld, Oct. 1, 2026, https://www.pcworld.com/article/3249113/chatgpt-pros-biggest-perk-just-got-cut-in-half-meet-the-new-ai-subscription-math.html
- OfficeChai Team, "OpenAI To Decrease Limits On Pro Plan From 20 Times To 10 Times Of Plus Plan," OfficeChai, Oct. 1, 2026, https://officechai.com/ai/openai-to-decrease-limits-on-pro-plan-from-20-times-to-10-times-of-plus-plan/
- Zach Moskow (@zachmoskow), "Kind of wild how nobody is talking about this. Starting October 30, OpenAI is cutting ChatGPT Pro usage limits in HALF.," X, Oct. 28, 2026, https://x.com/zachmoskow/status/2115242952830095705
- Cellcog, "ChatGPT Pro Usage Limits Doubled, Pro 200 Cut Canceled," Cellcog, Oct. 29, 2026, https://cellcog.ai/blog/chatgpt-pro-usage-limits-doubled/
- scorpio11141986, "Day 25 Wasn't a 2x Improvement for Existing Pro 200 Users. Stop Calling a Canceled Downgrade an Upgrade.," OpenAI Developer Community, Oct. 29, 2026, https://community.openai.com/t/day-25-wasnt-a-2x-improvement-for-existing-pro-200-users-stop-calling-a-canceled-downgrade-an-upgrade/1410852