Summary
- • OpenAI launches $100/month Pro plan offering 5× more Codex capacity than the $20 Plus tier
- • New pricing explicitly targets Anthropic's same-priced Claude plan in a direct developer-market challenge
- • Codex now has 3M+ weekly users growing 70%+ month-over-month over the past three months
- • Elevated rate limits on the new tier are promotional only, expiring May 31, 2026
Details
New $100/month Pro tier with 5× Codex capacity vs Plus plan
OpenAI launched a $100/month plan sitting between its $20 Plus and $200 legacy Pro tiers. The primary differentiator is rate limits: 5× more Codex capacity than Plus, designed for developers running sustained high-intensity coding sessions.
Explicitly targets Anthropic's Claude at the same $100/month price point
OpenAI named Anthropic directly in launch messaging, claiming Codex delivers more coding capacity per dollar compared with Claude Code. This is a rare explicit competitive callout from a major AI lab.
Codex: 3M+ weekly users, 70%+ MoM growth, 5× growth in three months
Usage data underscores strong demand: Codex has over 3 million weekly active users globally, has grown more than 70% month-over-month, and increased 5× over the past three months.
Full pricing ladder: Free (ads), $8 Go (ads), $20 Plus, $100 Pro, $200 legacy Pro
Free and $8 Go tiers now include ads. The $200 legacy Pro tier remains available but is no longer listed on OpenAI's public pricing page. Both the $100 and $200 plans share the same core features; the difference is rate limits, with $200 offering 20× higher limits than Plus.
Elevated $100 plan Codex limits are promotional through May 31, 2026
OpenAI is temporarily offering higher-than-standard Codex limits on the new $100 tier until May 31, 2026. Standard rate limits will apply after that date, which may affect user retention for developers who signed up during the promotional window.
Product Launch = new offering; Strategy = competitive positioning; Stat = usage/adoption data; Financials = pricing structure; Context = important caveat or background
What This Means
OpenAI is directly competing with Anthropic for the professional developer segment at the $100/month price point, using pricing parity and claimed coding-capacity advantages to attract Claude Code users to Codex. With Codex already growing rapidly across millions of active users, this new tier formalizes the AI coding tool market as a two-horse race between OpenAI and Anthropic. Developers can now make a direct cost-per-capacity comparison between the two platforms — though the promotional rate limits mean the comparison will look different after May 31.