OpenAI Removes ChatGPT Free-Tier Text Limits, Upgrades Models, and Slashes API Prices — Full Breakdown

Paid tier: Upgraded Sol, a thinking slider, and expanded custom instructions

Plus and Pro subscribers received an updated version of GPT‑5.6 Sol that OpenAI says delivers more reliable facts and more focused answers . A new slider lets users control how much “thought” the model puts into each response .

Saved custom instructions expanded from 1,500 to 5,000 characters for all Plus, Pro, Enterprise, Business, and Education users . OpenAI also formalized two Pro tiers: $100/month (5× higher usage than Plus) and $200/month (20× higher usage) .

API pricing: Luna down 80%, Terra down 20%, Sol gets a fast mode

On July 30, 2026, OpenAI made permanent cuts to API pricing for two of its three GPT‑5.6 models :

• GPT‑5.6 Luna: Input dropped from $1.00 to $0.20 per million tokens (80% cut); output from $6.00 to $1.20 .
• GPT‑5.6 Terra: Input dropped from $2.50 to $2.00 (20% cut); output from $15.00 to $12.00 .
• GPT‑5.6 Sol: Unchanged at $5/$30, but gained a new “Fast mode” in the API at 2× the price with 2.5× the speed .

The cuts are permanent list-price changes, not time-limited promotions . OpenAI cited system-efficiency gains and business pressure to lower AI costs as reasons .

Market share: ChatGPT dips below 50% for the first time

According to Sensor Tower’s State of AI 2026 report, ChatGPT’s global AI-assistant market share fell to 46.4% at the end of May 2026 — the first time it has held less than half the market since launching in November 2022 . Google Gemini climbed to 27.7%, and Anthropic’s Claude reached 10.3% .

Web-traffic data from SimilarWeb tells a similar story: ChatGPT’s share of generative AI website traffic dropped from 77.6% in May 2025 to 53.7% in April 2026 — a loss of roughly 24 percentage points in 12 months . During that same window, Gemini nearly quadrupled its share (from 7.27% to 26.7%) and Claude jumped nearly sixfold (from 1.37% to 7.95%) .

Despite the share erosion, ChatGPT crossed 1 billion weekly active users around the time of the August announcements .

Why OpenAI made these moves

Competitive pressure is the clearest catalyst. With Gemini and Claude eating into ChatGPT’s dominance, removing friction on the free tier is a direct defensive play to retain users and data volume . The API price cuts serve a similar purpose, making OpenAI more attractive to businesses that are scrutinizing AI spending .

Infrastructure efficiency makes the price cuts possible. OpenAI said improvements in system efficiency allowed the deep discounts on Luna and Terra .

The user growth and data flywheel logic is also at work: with 1 billion weekly users, removing text limits maximizes engagement, generates training data, and creates a pipeline for upselling to paid tiers .

On advertising revenue and mental health guardrails for minors, the available sources do not provide specific confirmations. The “abuse guardrails” mentioned for the new Think button suggest ongoing moderation, but no dedicated minor-specific mental health measures were found in the published announcements .