OpenAI Aims to Be 'WeChat' Beyond Higher Subscriptions and Halved Quotas

Author｜Alan

In the early hours of September 30, Beijing time, OpenAI concluded what it described as "the largest developer conference to date." The official summary page listed a total of 25 releases, ranging from new models and APIs to an application marketplace for businesses to purchase software.

The quietest moment in the room came when Sam Altman discussed the adjustments to the ChatGPT Pro membership. No one in the audience applauded.

The adjustment itself is not complicated: the price of Pro 200 remains at $200 per month, but the usage for new subscriptions has been reduced; additionally, a new tier, Pro 500, has been introduced at $500 per month, offering 25 times the usage of Plus, along with a speed tier called Astra Ultrafast that is exclusive to personal packages.

That moment of silence spoke volumes about the true theme of the day: what this conference fundamentally changed was the way ChatGPT charges for its services: it no longer charges like a chat application, but rather like an "employee," with clear pricing based on the amount of work done and the speed of execution.

Monthly fees and usage are both 25 times that of Plus｜Image source: OpenAI

01 AI Begins to Earn Salaries

As expected, OpenAI devoted the largest portion of the conference to "dots," and the official Chinese page retained this English name.

According to the official statement, each "dot" is powered by GPT-6 Astra, equipped with its own cloud computer and browser, capable of connecting to over 4,000 applications and operating around the clock.

The usage is quite similar to assigning tasks. You give it a goal and specify which operations it can take charge of, and it will proactively start working. It can reside in ChatGPT, Slack, and Teams, and OpenAI's product lead Tibo (Thibault Sottiaux) tweeted during the event that while it is working, you can even call it directly.

OpenAI describes it as "an intelligent agent capable of continuously taking on responsibilities," envisioning a future where multiple dots form teams to work collaboratively for you.

The phrase "taking on responsibilities" is very precisely chosen. Previous AI assistants responded to your queries one at a time; the dot is designed to work even when you are not present. This sounds more like a job description rather than a software manual.

Dots are initially available only to Pro subscriptions starting at $100 per month｜Image source: OpenAI

The threshold for using a dot is not low. Only Pro subscriptions among individual users can access it, with Tibo specifically noting that this includes the $100 Pro 100 tier, while businesses can access it through Business Premium.

The official statement mentions that the first dot is included with the subscription at no additional charge, and chatting with it does not count against usage. However, having it "work in ChatGPT" and perform tasks in Codex will still deduct from the quota.

The question is, what is installed on this cloud computer? Tibo is very confident about the cloud, tweeting during the event that once the new Codex cloud environment is set up, you will never want to go back to developing on a laptop.

During a live viewing organized by Geek Park in Silicon Valley, a participant working in mathematics mentioned that his code needs to call a commercially licensed mathematical optimization solver, which works locally with Codex but may not transfer to the cloud along with these tools and licenses. Should AI simply rewrite one? His judgment is that we are not yet at the level of mature tools.

He usually uses AI for specific research, not for booking tickets or reserving sports fields. During the viewing, some felt that personal assistants from various companies are starting to look increasingly similar. Just the day before, Manus released version 2.0, which also focuses on personal AI assistants and cloud computers. For these professional users, what they lack is not a few thousand more application connections, but their own local environment.

Aside from dots, the tiered membership is the most drastic change and also the most criticized aspect. About two hours before the conference began, Tibo tweeted that the new multipliers were quite straightforward: Plus counts as 1x, Pro 100 is 5x, Pro 200 is 10x, while the old Pro 200 was 20x.

To add a bit of surprise, Tibo even prepared a physical "reset" button on site｜Image source: OpenAI

Converting the monthly fees into multipliers makes things clear. The monthly fee for Pro 100 is 5 times that of Plus, Pro 200 is 10 times, and Pro 500 is 25 times, matching their respective usage multipliers exactly. The old Pro 200 offered 20 times the usage for 10 times the price; this "wholesale price" is gone, with each tier now costing $20 for 1 unit of Plus usage.

The official help page phrases it much more tactfully: Pro 200 is reopening for new subscriptions at $200 per month, but the usage quota for new subscriptions is lower than before; eligible old subscribers will retain their old quota until October 29, after which it will also be reduced. Tibo calculated that the new Pro 200, when converted to API costs, is about half of the old version.

The most concentrated dissatisfaction during the viewing also fell here. Some attendees felt that the original package's usage had decreased, effectively amounting to a price increase, while they also did not receive the anticipated new model; others expressed that what they most wanted was a model with stronger mathematical and algorithmic capabilities, but this release leaned more towards consumer-oriented features.

The official reason given is that the models are becoming more efficient.

Yet, at the same conference, OpenAI released the only new model this time, GPT-6.1 Sol.

It is an upgraded version of Sol, and the official statement claims it has intelligence close to Astra, with API prices only one-fifth of Astra's. Tibo also mentioned that GPT-6 Sol and Luna have just dropped to half of their original prices.

Models are becoming cheaper, yet the usage provided to members has been cut in half.

These two facts are not contradictory; they simply reflect a change in pricing units. According to OpenAI's logic, as models become more efficient, each unit of quota can accomplish more work, so less quota can be provided. What you are paying for is no longer the number of conversations or tokens, but the amount of work done.

This is the logic of calculating salaries for employees. Employers do not care how many keystrokes you made; they only care about how much work you delivered.

Speed is also starting to be priced separately. According to official data, Astra Ultrafast in Codex is up to 8 times the standard speed, processing 300 tokens per second, while in the API it is up to 6 times, with API prices also exactly 6 times the standard rate. In ChatGPT membership, its consumption rate is 8 times that of the standard mode, and only Pro 500 and enterprise versions can use it. If you want AI to work faster, you have to pay an express fee like sending a package.

Every million output tokens, $50 becomes $300｜Image source: OpenAI

This trend has actually been evident in Silicon Valley for some time: in May, Microsoft pressed the pause button on vibe coding, concluding that burning tokens had become more expensive than employing staff; in September, Silicon Valley reviewed employee AI bills, with the median monthly expenditure reported by Microsoft employees being $300.

At that time, companies were learning to account for AI expenses. Now it is OpenAI's turn to set prices for AI using a wage-calculation approach, and the monthly fee for Pro 500 has already exceeded the median on that bill.

What about the $20 Plus and free users?

The heaviest items this time, dots, data space, dynamic pages, and Ultrafast, all start at Pro. GPT-6.1 Sol will gradually be made available to Plus, but currently, it is only integrated into "ChatGPT Work" and Codex, with the official statement saying it "has not yet entered Chat." Most features marked as "available for all subscriptions" are developer-oriented functions like Codex command line, code review, and plugin extensions.

02 The Next WeChat

The other half of the conference announcements focused on transforming ChatGPT into a single entry point. OpenAI clearly stated at the beginning of the summary page that it aims to make ChatGPT "an open platform for collaboration between humans and intelligent agents," allowing developers to directly offer native experiences to a combined total of 1.2 billion users.

Plugin extensions serve as the gateway to this entry point. Developers can create applications directly within ChatGPT: occupying a fixed entry in the sidebar, creating an interactive panel for simultaneous chatting and usage, or building a viewer for their own file formats. Accompanying this are plugin creation tools, redesigned submission processes, and new sorting methods; plugins can also automatically trigger a series of operations when something happens in connected applications.

Tibo added a more crucial statement during his live tweets: ChatGPT will directly recommend relevant plugins during conversations.

This statement carries more weight for developers than the plugin functionality itself. Users will not need to search in the store; relevant plugins will be presented to them during conversations, but who gets recommended and who does not will be determined by ChatGPT. Developers gain access to 1.2 billion users while simultaneously relinquishing control over sorting.

Another feature called "Login with ChatGPT" allows users to log into partner products using their ChatGPT account without needing to register again. The official Chinese page specifically states that partners will only receive names, emails, and avatars, and chat records and memories will not be shared. Plus and Pro users can also directly use their membership quotas in some partner products, currently in limited preview, with the official English page listing 16 partners, including Devin, Notion, and Vercel.

In the context of the Chinese internet, this combination feels very familiar. The recommended plugins during conversations resemble mini-programs, logging in with ChatGPT is akin to logging in with WeChat, and the membership quotas are usable across partner products, resembling a cross-application wallet.

This wallet aspect connects with the tiered membership discussed earlier. According to the official English page, the OpenAI usage consumed in these partner products will count against your own subscription quota. In other words, the previously calculated "$20 per unit" usage can now be spent not only in ChatGPT but also in others' products.

On the enterprise side, there is also an "OpenAI Software Marketplace": eligible enterprise customers can use their committed consumption quotas to purchase software from the first batch of 32 partners, including Adobe, Figma, and Salesforce.

Tools needed for work have also been integrated into ChatGPT this time. Data space replaces the original Library, allowing teams to work alongside ChatGPT and their own dots in the same space; dynamic pages are a new type of document, with the official statement claiming that "anything that can be done with ChatGPT can be completed on the page"; slides can be collaboratively edited and exported as PowerPoint or Google Slides.

These features are also available only to Pro and enterprise packages. Enterprise users can @ChatGPT in Slack and Teams, and colleagues without ChatGPT licenses can also join the same conversation.

As for Codex, in addition to the previously mentioned cloud version, the command line has also been revamped, allowing tasks to be assigned via voice, and new versions of code review and code security scanning have been released.

The API has introduced a Decisions API powered by Luna, which Tibo claims can make judgments in a few hundred milliseconds; the Agents API, which supports computer operations, is in preview, and Tibo mentioned that dots use the same technology. OpenAI has also collaborated with Amazon to integrate its intelligent agents into AWS's Bedrock.

Tibo's tweets during the event included a striking number: token traffic on the Responses API has increased 100 times compared to last year. He later admitted that the simultaneous launch of all updates affected the live demonstration.

Tibo's summary page of the conference｜Image source: X

Looking at the 25 releases, OpenAI aims to transform ChatGPT into a workplace: with colleagues having their own computers, a space for collaborative document editing, integration into Slack and Teams channels, and a pricing table based on workload and speed.

At that moment, no one in the audience applauded for Sam Altman: because the developers sitting in the audience are the first batch of people who will have to pay according to this pricing table. *Header image source: OpenAI

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