- ChatGPT’s huge global user base has created infrastructure demands that far exceed subscription revenue.
- OpenAI’s increasing compute and energy expenses are pushing the company to explore advertising and new revenue models.
- OpenAI is reshaping its business model and strategy to sustain access to AI as its use continues to grow.
OpenAI appears to be developing a new ChatGPT tier called ChatGPT Pro Lite, set at about $100 per month, according to code found by Testing Catalog. The code suggests that OpenAI may be looking to fill the gap in subscription pricing between the $20/month ChatGPT Plus and the $200/month ChatGPT Pro.
The possible Pro Lite tier would fall in the middle at $100, a bridge for users who regularly exceed the Plus limits but can’t justify paying for Pro. ChatGPT Pro Lite would join an increasingly complicated selection of options expanded over the last year.
There is now ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus and Pro, while businesses have options for Team, Business and Enterprise. The spread makes sense in some ways, but for the average person, it’s hard to justify a tenfold price increase, even if you hit ChatGPT Plus limits every month. A Pro Lite level would finally create an intermediate step for people working on more demanding tasks, such as coding, research, and image and video generation.
And, as the discoverers noted, the timing of development, shortly after OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger joined OpenAI, is interesting. That open source agent framework wouldn’t really fit ChatGPT Plus’ pricing, but would struggle to attract much interest at Pro pricing. A $100 plan might be the right middle ground.
There are no details on what ChatGPT Pro Lite will include. Presumably a lesser version of Pro, it offers unlimited access to OpenAI’s most advanced models along with fast inference speeds, high daily capacity, and the company’s most powerful coding tools.
At the Plus level, base models have stricter fare caps and may slow down during peak hours. A Pro Lite plan can offer most of the performance benefits of the Pro, but with limited usage or higher limits than the Plus. People trying to perform deep thinking tasks in Plus often encounter speed limit messages at times when they are thinking. Others run into capacity limitations when generating long sequences of images or using ChatGPT for iterative code review.
A $100 plan could smooth out that friction. It could also expand the usefulness of newer features like desktop app integrations, voice mode, file management workflows, and coding assistance, which tend to be more demanding on back-end resources than traditional chat.
ChatGPT Plus Lite
It could also help OpenAI compete with subscriptions offered by Google, Anthropic and other AI developers. Anthropic’s Claude Max costs $100 per month, while Google Gemini can cost that much, depending on other Google products you buy.
A $100 level would not only reflect user demand, but could also help manage OpenAI’s rising computing costs. Training and servicing frontier-scale models remains extraordinarily expensive, with higher-usage customers creating a disproportionate burden. Offering a mid-price tier designed to handle those heavier workloads spreads the cost more sustainably. For OpenAI, this could be part of a long-term plan to stabilize revenue while continuing to roll out new capabilities at an aggressive pace.
As enterprises move toward more autonomous systems, more agentic workflows, and more capable multimodal tools, the load on infrastructure will continue to increase. Price levels are one of the few levers that companies can adjust without stifling innovation. If ChatGPT Pro Lite ushers in a refined subscription structure, it could serve as a model for how AI companies balance services and pricing.
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