OpenAI tests ChatGPT Pro Lite at $100 per month, bridging gap between Plus and Pro tiers

ChatGPT might get cheaper 'Pro Lite' tier

This potential new tier would provide more subscription flexibility for ChatGPT users seeking enhanced capabilities at a moderate price point. If ChatGPT's $20-a-month Plus plan is cramping your style but the $200-a-month Pro plan sounds like overkill, there's growing evidence of a cheaper ChatGPT Pro tier that would split the difference. An AI developer poking around ChatGPT's web app code recently found a "checkout page" string that references a "ChatGPT Pro Lite" plan, with the price pegged at $100 a month. The checkout string has yet to be activated. The plan description on a subsequent checkout page merely details the existing ChatGPT Pro plan but is "likely still a work in progress," developer Tibor Blaho noted on X. Checking the ChatGPT web app code for myself on Monday, I too found several references to "PROLITE" and "chatgptprolite" on ChatGPT's plan pricing page. Blaho, a lead engineer for prompt management tool AIPRM, had previously found hidden code suggesting that ads were coming to ChatGPT, which turned out to be true. I've reached out to ChatGPT parent OpenAI for comment. OpenAI currently offers four personal ChatGPT tiers, including a $20-a-month Plus plan and ChatGPT Pro for a much pricier $200 a month. There's also the recently-launched $8-a-month Go plan and a free tier, both of which may serve ads along with ChatGPT's responses. ChatGPT Plus typically gives regular users enought headroom for everyday tasks and chats, including image and video generation, memory of past conversations, and the ability to create custom GPTs. But more ambitious users and Codex-using vibe coders may quickly find themselves hitting ChatGPT's usage limits. For them, the only option is a massive jump to the far pricier ChatGPT Pro tier. A $100 ChatGPT Lite would offer some much-needed middle ground between the $20-a-month ChatGPT Plus plan and the $200/month ChatGPT Pro tier. Gemini users are in a similar boat with Google's AI plans, with a wide gulf between Google AI Pro for $20 a month and Google AI Ultra for a whopping $250 a month. Google also offers a paired-back AI Plus plan for $8/month and a free tier, similar for ChatGPT's cheaper options. In contrast, Anthropic's Claude does boast a middle ground for its pricier plans, with Claude Max offering a Max 5x tier (with roughly five times the limits of the $20-a-month Claude Pro plan) for $100 a month, while a Max x20 plan goes for $200 a month.

OpenAI is testing a $100-a-month version of ChatGPT -- and it finally fills a big gap

ChatGPT Pro Lite is the missing middle subscription tier for the AI * ChatGPT's enormous global user base has created infrastructure demands that far exceed subscription income * OpenAI's rising compute and energy expenses are pushing the company to explore ads and new revenue models * OpenAI is reshaping its business model and strategy to sustain AI access as usage continues to grow OpenAI appears to be developing a new ChatGPT tier called ChatGPT Pro Lite, set at roughly $100 per month, according to code found by Testing Catalog. The code suggests that OpenAI may be looking to fill the gap in subscription prices between the $20-a-month ChatGPT Plus and the $200-a-month ChatGPT Pro. The potential Pro Lite tier would land in the middle at $100, a bridge for users who regularly exceed Plus limits but cannot justify paying for Pro. ChatGPT Pro Lite would join an increasingly complicated selection of options expanded over the last year. There's 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 they are hitting the limits of ChatGPT Plus every month. A Pro Lite tier would finally create a middle step for people working on more demanding tasks, such as coding, research, and image and video generation. And, as the discoverers pointed out, the timing of the development, so soon after OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger joined OpenAI, is interesting. That open source agent framework would not really fit in at ChatGPT Plus prices, but would struggle to attract a ton of interest at Pro prices. A $100 plan could be the right middle ground. There are no details about what ChatGPT Pro Lite will include. Presumably a lesser version of Pro, which offers unlimited access to OpenAI's most advanced models along with fast inference speeds, high daily capacity, and the company's strongest coding tools. At the Plus level, the baseline models have stricter rate limits and can slow down during peak hours. A Pro Lite plan might offer most of Pro's performance benefits, but with capped usage or higher limits than Plus. People who attempt deep reasoning tasks on Plus often encounter rate-limit messages at moments when they are mid-thought. Others run into capacity constraints when generating long sequences of images or using ChatGPT for iterative code revision. A $100 plan could smooth out that friction. It could also expand the usefulness of newer features like desktop app integrations, voice mode, file-handling workflows, and coding assistance, which tend to demand more back-end resources than traditional chat. ChatGPT Plus Lite It could also help OpenAI compete with the subscriptions offered by Google, Anthropic, and other AI developers. Anthropic's Claude Max is $100 per month, while Google Gemini can cost that much, depending on other Google products you purchase. A $100 tier would not just reflect user demand but could help manage OpenAI's soaring compute costs. Training and serving frontier-scale models remains extraordinarily expensive, and higher-usage customers create disproportionate load. Offering a mid-priced 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 companies push toward more autonomous systems, more agentic workflows, and more capable multimodal tools, the infrastructure burden will continue to rise. Pricing tiers are one of the few levers companies can adjust without slowing innovation. If ChatGPT Pro Lite marks the start of a refined subscription structure, it could serve as a template for how AI companies balance services and pricing. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button! And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

OpenAI May Launch $100 ChatGPT "Pro Lite" Plan

The new subscription plan will target power users between ChatGPT Plus ($20) and ChatGPT Pro ($200). OpenAI is planning to introduce a new mid-tier plan called "ChatGPT Pro Lite" which will sit below the $200-per-month ChatGPT Pro plan and the ChatGPT Plus plan (costs $20 per month). According to the initial leak, the ChatGPT Pro Lite plan may cost $100 per month, if we go by the code strings found in the frontend code. After the introduction of the affordable ChatGPT Go plan last year, which costs $8 per month, OpenAI now wants to offer its Pro-grade plan at a discounted price. Tibor Blaho, an AI reverse engineer, shared on X the code strings and the pricing information of a "ChatGPT Pro Lite" plan. Note that it may be a placeholder and the subscription cost may change when the plan launches officially. The ChatGPT Pro Lite plan is expected to offer 3x to 5x more usage quotas than the ChatGPT Plus plan. The code shows as the identifier and a parameter called which may increase the quota for deep reasoning or high-compute AI models. Since there is a large jump from ChatGPT Plus to ChatGPT Pro ($20 to $200), OpenAI is perhaps looking to target freelancers, researchers, and independent developers with this Pro Lite plan. It could target those users who hit usage limits more often, but can't afford to get the pricey $200 plan. By the way, in 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in a Reddit AMA session said that he wants to make ChatGPT "cheaper" over time. Anthropic, on the other hand, is gaining huge traction with its $100 Claude Max plan. It seems OpenAI is serious about this new subscription tier, and we may see a new plan in the coming months.