ChatGPT Pro: $100/month 'Pro Lite' tier expands Codex access

OpenAI appears to be testing a new mid-tier ChatGPT subscription — provisionally called "Pro Lite" — priced at about $100 per month, according to references discovered in the web app's source and checkout payloads. The initiative would sit between the existing Plus ($20) and Pro ($200) consumer plans and signals a strategic move to offer more price points for power users.

The Pro Lite lead surfaced when developers and researchers inspected the ChatGPT web client's code and backend responses, finding plan identifiers such as "prolite" and a numeric amount consistent with a $100 monthly fee. Publications that track app changes and testing catalogs corroborated the findings; although OpenAI has not issued a formal product announcement, the evidence has been treated as a credible leak by multiple outlets.

A key motivation for Pro Lite is likely expanding access to Codex, OpenAI's AI coding assistant. OpenAI's product notes and previous rollouts show Codex availability across paid tiers, with more advanced Codex model variants and research previews historically prioritized for higher-paying subscribers. Recent model releases explicitly positioned GPT-5.3‑Codex and related optimizations for paid tiers, making a mid-tier attractive to developers who need heavier coding workloads but find the full Pro price excessive.

From a market perspective, the pricing tweak would intensify competition with Anthropic, which introduced layered Max subscriptions including $100 and $200 options for Claude. A $100 Pro Lite could sway independent developers and small teams deciding between ecosystems, especially where usage limits and priority access to new models are decisive. The change also reflects broader cost pressures in large-scale model hosting and the trend toward segmenting offerings to capture different willingness-to-pay cohorts.

Analysts expect the Pro Lite launch, if formalized, to broaden OpenAI's monetization funnel by converting heavy Plus users without forcing them to jump to the $200 Pro tier. The ultimate market impact will hinge on precise quota allocations for Codex, availability of pro-mode compute, and any promotional credit structures around team or business plans. Investors and enterprise customers will watch for official pricing pages and OpenAI’s guidance on usage caps to assess revenue and adoption trajectories.