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The Stack / Chat Assistants

ChatGPT

02 Decisions

Useful, not essential. If Claude holds your thinking seat, ChatGPT earns its place through breadth: voice, apps, GPT-6 Sol in Chat since October 7, and GPT-6.1 Sol (Sept 29, a fifth of Astra's price) in Work, Codex and the API. The $8 Go tier makes it cheap to keep on the bench. Pro now runs $100, $200 or $500, and Pro 200's allowance halves on Oct 30. Don't stack a Pro tier on top of Claude Max. Pick one deep seat.

The job in the stack

The generalist seat: quick answers, brainstorming, voice mode, and the widest plugin/app ecosystem when you need breadth over depth.

Pricing

Plan Price Notes
Free $0 GPT-6 Luna since Oct 8, 2026, ad-supported, unlimited text chats (uploads, images, and tools still metered)
Go $8/mo Ad-supported in the US; same GPT-6 Luna default (since Oct 8, 2026) and unlimited text chats as Free, with higher limits on everything else
Plus $20/mo GPT-6 Sol in Chat since Oct 7, 2026, standard limits; GPT-6 Astra available in ChatGPT Work and Codex only, not in Chat
Pro $100–500/mo $100 middle tier added April 2026. Pro 500 ($500/mo, launched Sept 29, 2026) adds Ultrafast GPT-6 Astra in Work and Codex (up to 8x faster in Codex) and the highest usage allowance. From Oct 30, Pro 200's Work/Codex usage drops from 20x to 10x Plus, and GPT-6 Pro chat messages fall from 200 to 100 a week. Pro and Business Premium include one 'dot' (always-on agent), except in the EEA, Switzerland and the UK
Business $20–100/seat/mo Two seat types you can mix: Standard $20/seat/mo annual ($25 monthly) and Premium $100/seat/mo annual ($125 monthly) with 5x Standard usage, no 5-hour limit, and Dots (always-on agents). For teams of 2–200; SAML SSO, MFA, admin console, no training on business data by default

Pricing verified 2026-10-23. Plans change — the source of truth is ChatGPT's own pricing page.

Models & versions

  • GPT-6.1 Terra Released October 26, 2026. Mid-tier model built for computer use, visual reasoning and coding. API: $1/M input, $5/M output, half the price of GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-6.1 Sol. OpenAI says it finishes agent tasks more than 3x faster than GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol (vendor benchmark). Available to paid ChatGPT plans in ChatGPT Work and Codex
  • GPT-6.1 Sol Launched Sept 29, 2026 at DevDay. OpenAI says it nearly matches GPT-6 Astra on agentic coding, computer use and professional work at a fifth of Astra's token prices. API: $2/M input, $0.10/M cached input, $10/M output. Live in ChatGPT Work and Codex for Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu, but not yet in the main Chat. Ultrafast mode rolled out from Oct 8: same model, up to 8x faster in Codex, API at 6x the standard rate ($12/$60 per M); in Work and Codex it's limited to Pro 500 and eligible enterprise/edu accounts
  • GPT-6 Astra Flagship reasoning model, released September 3, 2026 — 1M token context, built for long-horizon agentic work (computer use, coding, research). API pricing is $10/M input and $50/M output, about 2.5x GPT-5.6 Sol. Access is tiered: in Chat it appears as GPT-6 Pro for Pro ($100 and $200), Business, and Enterprise; Plus gets Astra inside ChatGPT Work and Codex but not in Chat. Not the default in regular chat — GPT-6 Sol holds that seat since October 7
  • GPT-6 Sol / GPT-6 Luna Released September 22, 2026 — faster, cheaper siblings of GPT-6 Astra. API: Sol $2/M in, $10/M out (half GPT-5.6 Sol's $4/$20); Luna $0.10/$0.50. OpenAI says Sol makes about half as many factual mistakes as GPT-5.6 Sol on its internal eval. Now the Chat models: from October 7, 2026 GPT-6 Sol serves Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise in the Chat tab, and GPT-6 Luna reached Free and Go on October 8. The rollout ships with Intelligent UI — inline charts, forms, buttons and small calculators inside answers. Work and Codex models did not change with this release
  • GPT-5.6 Sol Was the top model in regular chat on Plus and up from the week of July 9, 2026 until GPT-6 Sol replaced it in Chat on October 7, 2026
  • GPT-5.6 Luna Was the Free and Go default from August 6, 2026 until GPT-6 Luna took over on October 8, 2026
  • GPT-5.6 (Sol / Terra / Luna) Full family opened via API July 9, 2026. Sol flagship API pricing cut again Aug 21, 2026 — $4/M input, $20/M output (from $5/$30), a promotional rate through Nov 21 aimed at Anthropic and Chinese-model competition. July 30 cuts still stand: Terra $2/$12, Luna $0.20/$1.20. Powers ChatGPT Work and Codex; Free/Go get Terra in those agent surfaces even without a paid plan
  • GPT-5.5 Retires from ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex on October 14, 2026, on every plan. The API is not affected. OpenAI points Codex users signed in with ChatGPT to GPT-5.6 Sol.

The honest read

What works

  • + Largest ecosystem: apps, custom GPTs, integrations, voice mode
  • + Go tier at $8 is the cheapest paid frontier-model access anywhere
  • + GPT-5.6 Sol is a genuinely strong generalist across text, vision, and code
  • + ChatGPT Work (new, GPT-5.6 + Codex) runs multi-hour autonomous projects across Drive, Slack, Salesforce, and a growing plugins directory

What breaks

  • − Ads on Free and Go tiers — your context is the product
  • − Pricing ladder keeps shifting; OpenAI has floated ending unlimited plans
  • − Long-document writing quality still trails Claude for operator work

Use it for

  • →Operators who want one cheap generalist on the bench
  • →Voice-first workflows and quick mobile capture
  • →Teams already inside the OpenAI ecosystem

Skip it if

  • ×You already pay for Claude Pro and your work is writing/reasoning-heavy
  • ×Ad-supported AI in your workflow crosses your trust boundary

Questions operators ask

?Is the $8 ChatGPT Go plan worth it?

As a bench seat, yes — it's the cheapest way to keep a frontier model available. Know that it's ad-supported: if client or business context flows through it, that trade-off is yours to make deliberately.

?ChatGPT or Claude for business writing?

Claude, in our testing and daily use. ChatGPT wins on breadth — voice, apps, images in one place. See our full comparison for the workflow-by-workflow call.

What changed

  1. NEWS SCAN: OpenAI released GPT-6.1 Terra on October 26 at $1/$5 per M tokens, now the cheapest computer-use model in the GPT-6 line, in ChatGPT Work and Codex on paid plans. Speed and accuracy figures are OpenAI's own. Consumer plan prices are unchanged. last_verified not moved (news only).
  2. Freshness sweep: real drift on Business. The plan is now two mixable seat types: Standard at $20/seat/mo annual ($25 monthly, down from $25/$30) and Premium at $100/seat/mo annual ($125 monthly) with 5x usage, no 5-hour limit and Dots. It now covers teams of 2–200. Free $0, Go $8, Plus $20 and Pro from $100 (three usage tiers) hold. GPT-6.1 Sol now appears in the plan model table. Read on the rendered chatgpt.com/pricing page.
  3. NEWS SCAN: OpenAI began rolling out Ultrafast mode for GPT-6.1 Sol on October 8 (API, Codex, ChatGPT Work). It's a speed tier, not a new model, at 6x the standard API rate, and in-app access is limited to Pro 500 and eligible enterprise/edu accounts. Added to the GPT-6.1 Sol note. Sourced from press; openai.com blocks fetch.
  4. NEWS SCAN: GPT-6 reached the Chat tab. On October 7, 2026 OpenAI began rolling GPT-6 Sol to Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise in Chat, with GPT-6 Luna reaching Free and Go on October 8, alongside Intelligent UI (inline interactive charts, forms and buttons in answers). Work and Codex models are unchanged. Sourced from launch coverage (MacRumors, gHacks, Quartz); openai.com blocks fetch. Plan notes, model notes and verdict updated. No subscription price change reported. Pricing not re-verified this pass, so last_verified holds.
  5. NEWS SCAN (DevDay, Sept 29): OpenAI shipped GPT-6.1 Sol ($2/$10 per M, $0.10 cached) to Work, Codex and the API, not yet to Chat. It launched a $500/mo Pro tier with Ultrafast Astra and confirmed Pro 200's Work/Codex usage drops from 20x to 10x Plus on Oct 30. Existing Pro 200 members get a one-time $2,500 usage credit that expires Dec 31. Dots, always-on agents on GPT-6 Astra, are included once in Pro and Business Premium outside the EEA, Switzerland and the UK. Updated pricing, models and verdict. Plus, Go, Free and Business prices are unchanged.
  6. Correction to the Sep 23 entry: GPT-6 Sol and Luna are not rolling into regular ChatGPT Chat. Launch coverage (9to5Mac) and rollout trackers agree they're live only in ChatGPT Work, Codex, and the API, while GPT-5.6 Sol (Plus and up) and GPT-5.6 Luna (Free/Go) remain the Chat models. Fixed the model note, verdict, and the best-assistant ranking line.
  7. NEWS SCAN: OpenAI released GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna on September 22, 2026. API pricing halves the 5.6 tier: Sol $2/$10 per M tokens (was $4/$20), Luna $0.10/$0.50 (was $0.20/$1.20). Live in ChatGPT Work and Codex for Plus and up; Luna reaches Free/Go in the desktop app; rolling into regular ChatGPT gradually. Which model is now the regular-chat default per plan isn't stated in launch coverage — left GPT-5.6 Sol/Luna entries in place until it is.
  8. News scan: two rollout details now pinned down. GPT-6 Astra reaches Plus only inside ChatGPT Work and Codex — in Chat it ships as GPT-6 Pro for the $100/$200 Pro tiers, Business, and Enterprise, so the earlier 'coming to Plus' read overstated it for chat use. And GPT-5.5 retires from ChatGPT, Work, and Codex on October 14, 2026 (API unaffected); anyone with saved workflows pinned to it should move to GPT-5.6 Sol. Plan prices unchanged: Go $8, Plus $20, Pro $100-$200, Business $25/user annual. Verdict holds; still watching for the day Astra becomes the Chat default.
  9. NEWS SCAN: OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra September 3, 2026 — new flagship reasoning model, 1M token context, saturating benchmarks for coding, computer use, and long-horizon agentic work. Rollout began with enterprise Daybreak cybersecurity customers; consumer ChatGPT plan access (Plus/Pro/Business/Enterprise) is still arriving as of this check, not yet the chat default. Watching for the day it replaces GPT-5.6 Sol as top model — that will need a verdict rewrite. Consumer plan prices unchanged.
  10. News scan: OpenAI cut GPT-5.6 Sol API pricing again on Aug 21 — input $5→$4, output $30→$20 per M tokens, a promotional rate through Nov 21, explicitly framed as competing with Anthropic and Chinese models. Consumer ChatGPT plan prices unchanged.
  11. News scan: OpenAI moved the Free and Go tiers onto GPT-5.6 Luna on August 6, 2026 and removed the text-message cap — the first time free ChatGPT has been uncapped. Uploads, images, and tools stay metered. A Think button lands for free users the week of August 10. Plus and Pro got a retuned GPT-5.6 Sol that now drives both Instant and deep reasoning. No price moved.
  12. Re-verified. No change: plan ladder holds ($0 Free / $8 Go / $20 Plus / $100–200 Pro / $25 per seat Business), GPT-5.6 Sol remains the top model on paid plans with GPT-5.5 Instant the everyday default, and the July 30 Terra/Luna API cuts already recorded here are still the current rates.
  13. NEWS SCAN: OpenAI cut GPT-5.6 API pricing July 30 — Luna dropped 80% to $0.20/$1.20 per M tokens, Terra 20% to $2/$12; Sol unchanged, consumer ChatGPT plans unchanged. Fast mode (2x standard price, ~2.5x speed) replaced Priority Processing. If an automation routes OpenAI API calls on cost, Luna's new floor re-opens that math.
  14. NEWS SCAN: confirmed the GPT-5.6 chat rollout landed — Plus and up now get GPT-5.6 Sol by default in regular chat (not just Work/Codex via API), and Free/Go moved up to GPT-5.5 Instant. Updated plan notes and models list accordingly.
  15. NEWS SCAN: OpenAI launched ChatGPT Work (July 9) — an agentic product built on GPT-5.6 and Codex that handles multi-hour autonomous projects across third-party apps via a new Unified Plugins Directory (Google Drive, Slack, Salesforce, GitHub, and more). Rolling out gradually on web/mobile by plan tier; available now via the desktop app, which also absorbed the standalone Codex app.
  16. NEWS SCAN: GPT-5.6 (Sol/Terra/Luna) opened to the public via API today, ending the ~20-org government-vetted preview that started June 26. ChatGPT app integration timing not yet confirmed — GPT-5.5 remains the top model on paid ChatGPT plans as of this verification.
  17. Verified plan ladder: Free, Go $8, Plus $20, Pro $100/$200, Business $25–30/user. GPT-5.5 is the top model; GPT-5.6 previewed.
  18. GPT-5.5 launched across paid plans.
  19. New $100 Pro middle tier introduced.

Give ChatGPT a job

The generalist seat: quick answers, brainstorming, voice mode, and the widest plugin/app ecosystem when you need breadth over depth.

Try ChatGPT →

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