Customers can no longer start OpenAI’s $200-per-month Pro plan, after the company temporarily halted new Pro subscriptions to relieve pressure on its systems as demand surged for the new model Astra. The change was announced on X by OpenAI product lead Thibault Sottiaux, who said the Pro tier creates the heaviest load and that pausing sign-ups was the smallest action to preserve service for the broadest set of users.
“We wanted to take the smallest step that allows us to continue giving the broadest access possible,” Sottiaux wrote. He also warned earlier that demand had been “really unprecedented,” and added that, “Priority will always be to keep excellent service for existing users, but we might have to pause new Pro subscriptions for a bit if this continues.”
OpenAI said other routes into its models remain open, including the API and lower-cost Go and Plus plans, which customers can still purchase. Astra, which launched on September 3, has been integrated across a range of OpenAI offerings, appearing in Pro, Plus, Enterprise, and Business accounts. The company has promoted Astra as a sizable advance in reasoning, coding, and interacting with computers, framing it as the start of an "AGI era," a positioning that appears to have driven unusually heavy interest in the new model.
The lab has not provided a date for when Pro sign-ups will resume, nor disclosed daily registration figures or the precise scale of the load it is managing. That opacity leaves buyers and observers without a timeline and concentrates attention on OpenAI’s next capacity moves. In recent weeks the company also raised usage limits for Codex users, a change last month that suggests the pressure on its systems increased recently.
For now OpenAI’s immediate task is to add infrastructure and protect the experience of current customers while some routes for new users stay active. Potential subscribers, enterprises and analysts will be watching for a reopening date or any additional controls on its highest-demand tiers.
