OpenAI launches $125-per-month Premium tier for ChatGPT Business power users

OpenAI has introduced a new "Premium" tier for ChatGPT Business seats designed to provide significantly higher usage limits for power users. The move targets corporate clients who have found existing capacity constraints restrictive for intensive professional workflows.

These Premium seats are priced at $125 per month for monthly billing, or $100 per month when billed annually. This represents a steep increase over the standard Business seat, which costs $25 per month. In exchange for the higher price point, Premium users receive five times the usage limits of the standard Business tier. For those utilizing GPT 5.5 Thinking, this increases the weekly capacity from 3,000 requests to 15,000 requests.

The push for 'deeper work'

OpenAI stated that the new SKU was developed because customers were requesting increased limits to facilitate "deeper work" on the Business tier. By creating a middle ground between the standard Business plan and the full Enterprise offering, OpenAI is attempting to capture more revenue from high-volume users within the small-to-medium business segment without requiring them to migrate to a full-scale enterprise contract.

Market pressures and open-weight competition

This pricing shift arrives as OpenAI faces intensifying competition from high-capability open-weight models, particularly those emerging from China. Unlike SaaS subscriptions, open-weight models allow companies to host AI on-premise or in colocation data centers, effectively eliminating per-seat usage fees. For companies with heavy AI consumption patterns, the ability to own their infrastructure becomes an attractive alternative to recurring subscription costs.

Strategic implications

The introduction of a $125 monthly seat changes the cost-benefit analysis for AI-heavy organizations. While the Premium tier solves immediate capacity issues for power users, the significant price hike may accelerate the industry shift toward open-weight alternatives. As the cost of SaaS subscriptions climbs, the financial incentive to move toward infrastructure ownership grows, potentially eroding OpenAI's grip on the high-end business market.

What to watch

Industry analysts will be monitoring the adoption rate of the Premium tier to see if the value proposition of 5x limits justifies the 400% price increase over standard seats. It remains to be seen if this tier will act as a bridge to Enterprise contracts or if it will inadvertently push power users toward self-hosted open-source models.