OpenAI Halts Pro Sign-Ups as Astra Demand Strains Systems — SkimNews
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- OpenAI paused new sign-ups for its $200-per-month Pro plan, with product lead Thibault (Tibo) Sottiaux announcing on X that the tier strains the company's infrastructure more heavily than any other
- Sottiaux, who leads Codex and ChatGPT at OpenAI, framed the move as the "smallest step" needed to keep giving broad access, noting that API, Go, and Plus plans remain open
- OpenAI warned on Wednesday that a Pro pause was possible, with Sottiaux calling demand for Astra "unprecedented" and saying the company had "pulled all the levers possible" to sustain it
- Astra launched September 3 and is rolling out across Pro, Plus, Enterprise, Business, and API tiers; OpenAI has called it the beginning of the "AGI era" and a "generational leap" in reasoning, coding, and computer use
- OpenAI has not disclosed how long the Pro pause will last or how many people sign up daily, while Codex usage limits were raised as recently as last month amid the same infrastructure strain
Why it matters: The Pro tier is OpenAI's flagship $200-per-month offering, and pausing new sign-ups reveals that its compute capacity cannot keep pace with demand generated by its own most-hyped launch. Existing Pro subscribers retain priority access, creating a hard waitlist at the top tier while rivals in reasoning, coding, and computer-use race to fill any gap.
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