Is OpenAI's $500 Ultrafast Plan Worth It? The Cheat Sheet for Which Plan to Pay For
OpenAI's new Ultrafast mode makes its best coding model up to 8x faster, but only on a $500 a month plan. Which ChatGPT plan is actually worth it for you, and the cheaper speed-up you may already have in Claude Code and Codex.
On September 29, at DevDay 2026, OpenAI launched Ultrafast: a new speed tier that makes GPT-6 Astra, its best model, generate tokens up to 8x faster in Codex, up to 300 tokens a second. On stage they gave the same prompt to Ultrafast and to the regular version side by side. Ultrafast's rocket had launched while the regular one was still being built.
The catch is the price. To get Ultrafast in Codex and ChatGPT Work you need Pro 500, a new $500 a month plan. So the real question isn't whether Ultrafast is fast. It's whether that speed is worth $6,000 a year to you, or whether a cheaper plan and a speed setting you already have would do.
What OpenAI launched
| What OpenAI says | |
|---|---|
| Speed | Up to 8x faster token generation in Codex (300 tokens a second); up to 6x in the API |
| Model | GPT-6 Astra only for now; GPT-6.1 Sol Ultrafast is "coming soon" |
| Where | Codex, ChatGPT Work and the API |
| Plan | Pro 500, $500 a month (among Pro plans, the only one with Ultrafast) |
| Usage | 25x the ChatGPT Plus allowance, no 5-hour limit |
| Other apps | Your plan's allowance works in 16 partner apps, including Devin and Notion, through Sign in with ChatGPT |
One detail matters more than the rest: OpenAI's own docs say the 8x "measures token generation speed, not billing rates or overall task completion time". Your agent writes 8x faster. It doesn't think, run your tests or wait on your tools 8x faster.
The catch: Ultrafast burns your allowance 8x as fast
On Pro 500, Ultrafast uses your included usage at 8x the Standard rate, then moves on to paid credits, which bill Ultrafast at 6x the Standard rate. Fast mode, the in-between setting, uses included usage at 2.5x.
Do the math on a plan that's 25x Plus: if you ran everything on Ultrafast, that allowance covers about as much work as three Plus plans (25 divided by 8), just done much faster. Pro 500 buys speed, not more work.
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Unlocks: The cheat sheet: which plan is worth it · The speed-up you may already have: fast mode · Building an app on the API? · Before you upgrade
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