OpenAI has temporarily stopped accepting new customers for its $200-per-month Pro subscription, saying an unexpected surge in demand for its latest AI model, Astra, is putting significant pressure on the company’s computing infrastructure.
The decision was announced by OpenAI product leader Thibault “Tibo” Sottiaux, who oversees products including Codex and ChatGPT. According to Sottiaux, Pro users consume more computing resources than customers on other subscription tiers, making the plan the most challenging to support during the current spike in usage.
“We wanted to take the smallest step that allows us to continue giving the broadest access possible,” Sottiaux said while explaining the temporary restriction.
Other plans remain available
For now, the suspension only affects new Pro subscriptions. Existing customers can continue using the service, while OpenAI’s lower-priced Go and Plus plans remain available. Access to the company’s API has also not been affected by the change.
OpenAI has not provided a specific date for when Pro sign-ups will reopen. It also hasn’t disclosed how many people have attempted to subscribe since Astra became available, making it difficult to determine the exact scale of the demand.
The company had already hinted that restrictions could be coming.
Earlier in the week, Sottiaux warned that interest in Astra had reached levels unlike anything OpenAI had previously experienced. He said the company was using multiple strategies to keep its infrastructure running smoothly but acknowledged that new Pro subscriptions could eventually need to be paused.
Astra is driving the surge
Astra launched on September 3 and quickly became available across several OpenAI plans, including Pro, Plus, Business, and Enterprise.
The model is designed to deliver major improvements in areas such as reasoning, software development, and computer interaction. Those capabilities have made Astra particularly attractive to developers and professional users who rely heavily on AI for demanding workloads.
The timing is also significant because OpenAI has positioned Astra as a major milestone in the development of advanced artificial intelligence. Company executives have described the release as an important step toward what they call the “AGI era.”
That messaging may have contributed to the extraordinary interest surrounding the model.
Infrastructure becomes the bottleneck
The situation highlights a growing challenge for AI companies: even when demand is strong, providing access to powerful models requires enormous amounts of computing capacity.
Pro subscribers receive higher usage limits and access to OpenAI’s most capable tools, meaning a relatively small number of heavy users can consume substantial resources.
OpenAI recently increased Codex usage limits for paid customers, but the latest demand appears to have arrived quickly enough to create new pressure.
For now, the company is choosing to limit new Pro customers rather than reduce service quality for its existing user base. How long that restriction lasts will depend largely on whether Astra’s explosive initial demand continues.
