OpenAI has temporarily halted new subscriptions for its $200-per-month Pro plan due to overwhelming demand for its latest model, Astra, which has been straining the company’s infrastructure.
This decision was communicated on X by Thibault (Tibo) Sottiaux, OpenAI’s product leader responsible for key offerings such as Codex and ChatGPT. He explained that the Pro plan is currently exerting the most pressure on their systems, prompting the suspension of new sign-ups for this tier.
“Our aim is to implement the least disruptive measure that still allows us to maintain broad access,” Sottiaux stated. He mentioned that other plans, such as the API and the more affordable Go and Plus options, will still be accessible to users.
On Wednesday, the company had already indicated that such a shift might be necessary. During that update, Sottiaux remarked, “The demand for Astra is truly extraordinary. We are doing everything we can to manage this demand, but I haven’t experienced anything like this before, even through previous rapid growth. Our priority is to provide excellent service to existing users, but we may need to temporarily suspend new Pro subscriptions if this trend persists.”
OpenAI has not provided any information regarding how long the pause in Pro tier subscriptions will last or how many daily sign-ups they are receiving, leaving unclear the extent of interest in the service.
Recently, the company raised the usage limits for Codex users, indicating that the current demand surge is a recent development.
Since its debut on September 3, Astra has been integrated across various OpenAI plans, including Pro, Plus, Enterprise, and Business accounts. The model is touted as a significant advancement in AI reasoning, coding, and computational tasks—all intensely competitive fields. OpenAI has even positioned Astra as the advent of the “AGI era” and a transformative development, further elevating interest in the model.
