OpenAI Preps $500 ChatGPT Pro Max Plan Powered by Faster Codex on Cerebras

OpenAI is reportedly preparing a $500-per-month ChatGPT Pro Max plan, per BleepingComputer, a substantial step up from existing paid tiers and a clear bet that a segment of power users — especially developers — will pay a premium for raw speed. The plan is built around a faster Codex, and the performance claim rests on Cerebras hardware that has run GPT-5.6 Sol at up to 750 output tokens per second, a throughput figure that would make interactive coding dramatically snappier.

The Cerebras angle is strategically interesting. OpenAI leaning on Cerebras' wafer-scale inference silicon rather than Nvidia GPUs for a speed-tier product is a signal that inference-latency differentiation is becoming a product lever, not just a backend detail — and it diversifies OpenAI's hardware dependencies at a moment when compute allocation is fiercely contested.

The $500 price point positions Pro Max well above typical prosumer tiers and squarely at professional developers and agentic workloads where speed compounds into real productivity. It also reflects the broader monetization push visible in the same reporting: OpenAI expanded ChatGPT Ads to Southeast Asia and Taiwan, and introduced GPT-6 Sol and Luna. The company is simultaneously chasing premium subscription revenue at the top and ad revenue at the bottom of its user base.

The skeptical read: $500/month is a bold test of willingness-to-pay in a market where open and Chinese models keep cutting API prices (DeepSeek's hikes notwithstanding, Alibaba just cut audio APIs up to 95%). Whether speed alone justifies the premium — versus capability — is the open question. Watch the official launch and whether the 750 tokens/sec figure holds under real multi-user load.