OpenAI's New $500 ChatGPT Is 8x Faster — If You Code

OpenAI quietly added a new top-tier ChatGPT subscription on September 29. Called Pro 500, it costs $500 a month — $300 more than the existing Pro 200 plan. The headline feature is 'Astra Ultrafast,' a speed mode that makes the AI spit out answers roughly eight times faster inside two specific tools: Codex, which writes and fixes computer code for you, and ChatGPT Work, aimed at office tasks. OpenAI says it can produce about 300 tokens per second. Tokens are just chunks of text — think of it as the AI typing at superhuman speed.

Here's the important part: this is not a faster chatbot for everyday use. If you mostly ask ChatGPT to draft emails, plan trips, or explain things, Pro 500 changes nothing for you. Ultrafast only works in those two work-and-coding environments. OpenAI describes it as a faster way to generate text, not a promise that a whole project finishes eight times quicker. Your actual time savings depend on the job.

The catch is cost — twice over. Beyond the extra $3,600 a year, using Ultrafast eats your included monthly allowance at eight times the normal rate. If you run out and pay with credits, it costs six times the standard rate. So the fastest option is also the fastest way to burn through your budget. OpenAI also says usage allowances for existing Pro 200 subscribers are changing, with details coming by email.

So who should upgrade? People who live inside Codex or ChatGPT Work all day and feel real pain waiting — professional developers, for example, watching a slow AI tool stall their work. For everyone else, Pro 200 at $200 a month remains the sensible pick. OpenAI's own advice boils down to this: track how often the cheaper plan slows you down, then decide whether that frustration is worth $300 a month.