Is ChatGPT Pro Worth It for Marketers After DevDay?
Is ChatGPT Pro worth it after OpenAI DevDay? As your only plan, not anymore: the $200 tier now buys less, Claude Max is the better $200 for knowledge work, and the entry Pro tier still earns a spot as a second plan.
Is ChatGPT Pro Worth It? Our DevDay Recap
Aaron and I recorded this episode of AI Rabbit Holes on October 1, two days after OpenAI's DevDay keynote.
Aaron spent at least nine months telling people the $200 ChatGPT Pro plan was the best value in AI. While he watched the DevDay announcements, he signed up for Claude Max.
If you want the files that make switching between vendors a one-afternoon job, my Claude Code Skills Stack is the same set of skills I run every day.
What DevDay Changed on the ChatGPT Pro Plans
On September 29, 2026, OpenAI changed what the money buys, and the price tags barely moved.
- ChatGPT Pro is now three plans: Pro 100 at $100, Pro 200 at $200 and a new Pro 500 at $500 a month. Plus stays at $20.
- New Pro 200 subscriptions get "a lower usage allowance than previously offered," per OpenAI's Pro help page. The price stays at $200.
- Existing Pro 200 subscribers keep the old allowance through October 29, 2026, then move to the lower one.
- Pro 500 gets the highest allowance, 25 times what Plus includes, plus Ultrafast mode, according to OpenAI's DevDay recap.
I pulled up the upgrade card in my own account while we recorded. Look at what changes between the three tiers.
The headings change from "Standard usage" to "More usage" to "Maximum power," and one feature line moves from "More" to "Faster" to "Fastest Work and Codex." Every other feature line matches, down to the dots agent and the 100 GB of storage.
Is ChatGPT Pro worth it at $200, then? The card can't tell you, because none of the three prints a usage number.
Aaron put it best when I compared the change to a bag of chips: "There's just more air and fewer chips." Same bag, same price, less inside.
One correction to what we said on the recording
On camera, Aaron said the $200 plan now gets "a quarter of the use" it used to. OpenAI has not published a number for the new Pro 200, so nobody can check that fraction yet.
What we do know: before DevDay, OpenAI's own help page listed the $200 plan at 20 times the Plus allowance. Today it says only that Pro 200 includes more usage than Pro 100.
Aaron's bigger point was that "the only reason to upgrade to five hundred is to get back to the rate limits that your two hundred plan used to be." The published numbers back him up, since the only tier OpenAI now lists above the old $200 plan is Pro 500, at 25 times Plus.
My read is that OpenAI is pulling subscription value closer to what the same usage costs on the API. Aaron's version: OpenAI was the best value in AI "until this week."
Who Pro 500 is actually for
Almost nobody, as a daily plan. Its headline feature is Ultrafast, which OpenAI says runs up to 8x faster in Codex.
The fine print matters more. OpenAI's help page says Ultrafast uses your included allowance at 8 times the normal rate.
Real work also waits on tool calls, file reads and web fetches, and none of that gets faster. I'd save Ultrafast for a real deadline and leave it off the rest of the time.
ChatGPT Dots Is Not a Reason to Upgrade
Is ChatGPT Pro worth it just to get a dot? Aaron tested one so you don't have to.
"You need a hundred dollar or higher plan to get access to one dot, do not subscribe to that just for a dot if you were having FOMO from that. I'm telling you right now, it's not worth it."
A dot is an always-on agent inside ChatGPT, powered by GPT-6 Astra, with its own computer in the cloud. OpenAI's launch post says your first dot is included in Pro or Business Premium, with more dots coming "in the future."
He set his up, tried one of everything, called it from the ChatGPT app and then stopped using it. His summary: "rough around the edges and kind of janky."
The bigger complaint is that it does nothing you couldn't already do in Codex. It's a new form factor around the same tools.
I haven't tested a dot myself yet. From the outside, it looks like a glorified Codex session that runs 24/7.
The dots details buyers miss
- Plus does not include dots, and Pro users in the EEA, Switzerland and the UK can't get one at launch.
- OpenAI's release notes say dots usage won't count toward eligible Pro plan allowances for the first month, with usage terms to follow after that.
- Tasks your dot starts in Codex or ChatGPT Work already draw down your limits today.
- The "call your dot" feature is a phone button inside the ChatGPT app. Your dot cannot call you at launch.
Aaron's read on that free first month is what you'd expect: "Here's the free sample, get you hooked, and now you're gonna pay next month."
Dots is also plural, but you can only make one, while Grok Bot already lets Aaron run separate bots for separate jobs. I still expect a polished version to win over people who want official integrations, given time.
Why Claude Max Is the Better $200 Right Now
Two weeks ago I published a ChatGPT Pro vs Claude Max comparison that leaned toward OpenAI on plan math. At the time, Aaron had no Claude subscription at all.
Here is what I said this week, word for word: "A $200 a month Claude Max plan is far better than a $200 a month ChatGPT Pro plan now, which is a complete 180 of what I was telling people a week or two ago."
Is ChatGPT Pro worth it as your only plan? Not anymore, for two reasons.
OpenAI cut what the $200 buys, and Anthropic shipped two models that are worth the usage.
My take on the episode was that Opus 5.5 is the best AI model right now "for most people," with the hedge that I meant knowledge work, not coding. Claude Sonnet 5.5 shipped on September 28 and is now my workhorse.
Since signing up, Aaron has used Opus for planning and design and Sonnet for day-to-day tasks. His first reaction to Sonnet was "it's really fast."
He also said Opus "blows the OpenAI models out of the water" on anything visual, from landing pages to website animations.
Three friends texted him that week asking for the one-sentence answer on all the new releases. His answer was "Don't get an OpenAI sub."
Then, to me: "I haven't said that since at least February of 2026 to anybody."
Claude Max costs $100 for 5x or $200 for 20x the Claude Pro plan's per-session allowance. Anthropic has not announced a change to Max like the one OpenAI made to Pro 200.
I don't expect that to last. If a $500 Claude plan and a smaller $200 one show up in a few months, I won't be surprised, which is why my advice on the episode was to get Claude Max now and use as much of it as you can.
Why I'm Keeping ChatGPT Pro at the Entry Tier
None of this means I'm canceling ChatGPT. I'm on Pro 100, and that is where I'm staying.
Is ChatGPT Pro worth it as a second plan? For me, yes, because every model in my setup has a job written down in the AGENTS.md file that runs my workspace.
- Daily driver: Claude Opus 5.5, for planning, drafting and anything a client sees.
- Workhorse: Claude Sonnet 5.5, for SERP pulls, competitor reads, web fetches and data summaries.
- Gatekeeper: GPT-6.1 Sol at high reasoning, run through the Codex CLI, which red-teams whatever a Claude model produces.
Image generation is the other job that keeps me on OpenAI. Neither job needs more than the entry Pro tier.
Aaron's take is that Sol is the model the new limits push you toward. OpenAI prices it at one-fifth of Astra's token rates.
In his first two days with it, Sol made the new limits go much further, at the cost of speed.
I walk through the full routing logic in which Claude model to use for which job.
ChatGPT Pro still has things Claude doesn't. Aaron likes OpenAI's plugins, voice mode and image model, and he finds Anthropic's desktop and phone apps half-baked next to them.
His tiebreaker is the one I agree with: "If I don't get a good model at usable rate limits, what good are all those extra add-ons?"
Buy the Plan You Will Actually Use Up
So, is ChatGPT Pro worth it now? For most marketers buying one AI subscription, no.
For writing, research and client work, my bet is that Claude Max gets you more of a better model for the same $200, at least until Anthropic reprices it.
Next to Claude Max, the entry Pro tier still earns its spot in my setup for red-teaming and images. Upgrading for dots or Ultrafast is the move I'd skip.
Is ChatGPT Pro Worth It FAQs
Is ChatGPT Pro 500 worth it?
For most people, no. Pro 500 costs $500 a month and gives you 25 times the Plus allowance plus Ultrafast mode. Ultrafast uses your included allowance at 8 times the normal rate, and real tasks still wait on tool calls, so the speed you feel is smaller than the headline. It makes sense only if Pro 200 limits block paid work every week.
Do you need ChatGPT Pro to use dots?
Yes, or Business Premium, and Enterprise workspaces can switch on a beta. Plus does not include dots. Your first dot comes with Pro, which starts at $100 a month. Dots usage doesn't count toward your plan allowance for the first month, but tasks a dot starts in Codex or ChatGPT Work still draw down your limits. Pro users in the EEA, Switzerland and the UK can't get dots at launch.
Did OpenAI cut ChatGPT Pro 200 usage?
Yes, for new subscribers right away and for existing ones after October 29, 2026. The price stays $200, but new Pro 200 subscriptions get a lower allowance than before. The old plan was listed at 20 times Plus, and OpenAI has not published a number for the new one, so treat Aaron's on-air figure of "a quarter of the use" as unverified.
Is Claude Max better value than ChatGPT Pro right now?
For knowledge work, that is where Ryan Doser and Aaron Makelky both landed after DevDay. Claude Max costs $100 for 5x or $200 for 20x the Claude Pro per-session allowance, with Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5 included. If your work depends on OpenAI's image model or plugins, keep the entry ChatGPT Pro tier alongside it, which is what Ryan does.