OpenAI has paused its $200 ChatGPT sign-ups as ‘unprecedented’ demand for new model Astra strains its system

OpenAI has hit the brakes on new sign-ups and upgrades for its $200-a-month ChatGPT Pro plan, the highest-priced tier where its new Astra model is available. Existing Pro customers are still fine, but if you were hoping to pay your way in, the company says not right now. The reason is simple: Astra is popular enough to overwhelm the system behind it.

The model arrived last week, and OpenAI only opened it to a small set of enterprise customers at first so it could build out compute capacity. Once it reached paying users, demand jumped fast. Thibault Sottiaux, OpenAI’s head of product, said the $200 plan is the one putting the most strain on the company’s infrastructure. He also said OpenAI is working on adding more capacity.

Astra’s design helps explain the pressure. Its main feature, called computer use, lets it operate a desktop much like a person would, filling out forms and moving through web pages at what Greg Brockman described as “superhuman speed.” OpenAI has also said Astra can use up user allowances faster than GPT 5.6 Sol, its previous flagship model. So this isn’t just more demand; it’s heavier demand.

This isn’t even OpenAI’s first capacity crunch. In November 2023, it temporarily stopped new subscriptions to the $20 ChatGPT Plus plan after its developer conference caused a spike in usage. Back then, Sam Altman said the surge had exceeded capacity. The company has since expanded sharply, saying available compute rose from 0.2 gigawatts in 2023 to about 1.9 GW in 2025.

And it’s still buying its way into more power. OpenAI has broadened beyond Microsoft Azure, added CoreWeave, launched Stargate, and lined up new capacity starting in the second half of 2026, including at least 10 GW of Nvidia systems, a 6-GW deal with AMD, and 10 GW of custom accelerators with Broadcom. That’s a lot of hardware to chase just to keep one model from melting the front door.