OpenAI DevDay 2026: cheaper models, always-on agents, and a smaller $200 plan

OpenAI held DevDay in San Francisco on 29 September, and there was a lot to take in. A cheaper model, a faster Astra, agents that keep working after you close the tab, and a pile of new ways to build inside ChatGPT.

There was also a catch, and it went out the night before the keynote. The $200 Pro plan is reopening, but it now buys about half as much.

Here’s what shipped, what it costs, and what I’d check before you change anything. OpenAI’s recap has the full list if you want it.

GPT-6.1 Sol is the new everyday model

Sol 6.1 is an upgrade to GPT-6 Sol. OpenAI says it’s better at coding, computer use, and factual answers, and that it gets close to Astra on several of its evaluations. Those are OpenAI’s own tests, so try it on your own work before you swap models.

You can use it now in ChatGPT Work, Codex, and the API as gpt-6.1-sol. It isn’t in regular Chat yet. Here are the standard short-context API prices, in USD per million tokens:

Sol costs a fifth of Astra for input and output. That’s the comparison the launch means by “one-fifth”. It doesn’t mean your existing Sol bill just dropped by 80%. The token rate is also only part of what an agent costs you. Retries, tool calls, and long context all add up, so compare the cost of a finished task. Prices are from the API pricing page. I covered the Astra launch itself in the previous AI Week.

Astra Ultrafast costs six times as much

Ultrafast is a premium speed tier for Astra. OpenAI says it generates up to 300 tokens per second, up to 8 times faster in Codex and up to 6 times faster in the API. A Sol 6.1 version is coming later.

It costs $60 input and $300 output per million tokens, six times the standard Astra rate. That can be worth it when you’re sitting in a coding session waiting on every reply. It does much less for overnight jobs, or for time spent in builds, tests, and review. Faster tokens don’t make your whole task eight times faster.

On subscriptions, only the new Pro 500 plan includes Ultrafast. Buying extra credits on Pro 100 or Pro 200 won’t unlock it, and workspaces that need their data processed outside the US can’t use it at all.

Dots are agents that keep working

Dots were the headline product. Each one is an Astra-powered agent with its own cloud computer. You connect your apps, give it a goal, and come back later to see what it did, instead of starting every task from scratch. In the keynote they showed up as colourful cartoon blobs. The dots announcement has the details.

Pro and Business Premium get them first. Enterprise, Edu, and Healthcare admins have to switch the beta on. Your first dot is included. Talking to it is free, but the work it does in Work and Codex comes out of your usage allowance.

The part I’d pay most attention to is permissions. When a dot researches on its own, it only gets read-only tools. It can’t send messages or edit your apps unless your rules allow it. That’s the right default. An agent with unclear authority is one more thing you have to watch, which is the problem I wrote about in my agent security brief.

The name was already taken

Within hours, people found that dot.com redirects to x.ai/bot. That’s the download page for Grok Bot, the agent app from Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI, the company xAI is now part of. A post pointing out that SpaceXAI owns the domain passed 3 million views that evening.

It probably wasn’t a planned troll, though. Business Insider found that the domain changed owners on 28 July, months before the launch. It also turned up a Chinese AI group called Dots Studio and a pending US trademark application for DOTS. Planned or not, the most obvious address for OpenAI’s new product sends people to a rival’s download page.

ChatGPT is becoming a place to build

The rest of the keynote was about keeping your work inside ChatGPT. Here’s the short version:

A few of these are previews, so check the weekly release notes before you plan around one. Codex Security Cloud, for example, is a research preview.

Simon Willison’s live blog caught some developer details the recap skips. The Sites session demoed SQLite storage, scheduled tasks, and shared editing, and the security session announced an open-source Codex Security CLI.

Put together, this is OpenAI trying to own more of your working day. If you can find a plugin, hand it work, and use the result without leaving ChatGPT, you have less reason to go anywhere else. For builders that means more reach, and more dependence on OpenAI’s rules for permissions, discovery, and billing.

The $200 plan now buys half as much

About ten hours before the keynote, Thibault Sottiaux, who leads Codex and ChatGPT Work at OpenAI, posted on X that the $200 Pro plan was reopening with new usage maths. By his own maths, the plan now works out to half the API spend the old one gave you.

The Next Web and daily.dev report what that means from 30 October:

• Work and Codex usage drops from 20 times the Plus allowance to 10 times.
• GPT-6 Pro chat messages drop from 200 a week to 100.
• Current subscribers keep their old limits until 29 October and get a one-time $2,500 usage credit that expires at the end of the year.
• The five-hour limit isn’t coming back.

The price stays at $200. OpenAI’s help page confirms the smaller allowance “to reflect our increasingly efficient models”. The exact multipliers come from the reporting above.

Sottiaux’s argument is that cheaper models make up the difference. In the same post he says OpenAI cut GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna to half their previous price that week. If your week runs on Sol or Luna, half the budget at half the price buys about the same amount of work, so for you it’s roughly even.

If you use Astra, it’s a real cut. Astra’s price didn’t change, so half the budget buys half as much Astra. Plenty of subscribers say Astra is why they pay $200 in the first place. It’s hard not to connect this to the load Astra caused. OpenAI paused new $200 sign-ups on 10 September, a day after Sottiaux warned that Astra demand was far beyond anything OpenAI had seen.

The other problem is that nobody outside OpenAI can check the maths. OpenAI has never published what the plan is worth in API dollars, so “half” is half of a number only OpenAI knows. Subscribers noticed. The replies were quick to point out that a plan sold as 20 times Plus is now 10 times Plus, and the story trended on X and drew 90 comments on Hacker News.

About the worldwide reset

During the keynote, OpenAI reset usage for users worldwide, not just the people in the room. Willison’s live blog records the button press at 10:53 Pacific. Check your own account, but treat it as a one-off. It says nothing about the allowance you’ll get from next month.

What I’d do this week

• Run the same few real tasks on Sol 6.1 and Astra. Compare quality, total cost, time, and retries.
• If you’re on Pro 200 and use mostly Astra, plan for about half as much after 30 October. Note your current usage now and read the transition email.
• Try Ultrafast only on work where you’re actually waiting on the model.
• Start a dot on one recurring task you can check, and set its limits before you connect more apps.

There’s good engineering in this launch. Cheaper strong models and agents that keep going will change what a small team can take on. My one ask is that if OpenAI wants its plans judged on what they get done, it should publish what a plan actually buys.

Questions

What is a dot in ChatGPT?

A dot is an Astra-powered agent with its own cloud computer and an ongoing goal. You connect your apps, give it a goal, and check back on its progress. Pro and Business Premium include one. Talking to it doesn’t use your ChatGPT conversation limits, but the tasks it runs in Work and Codex do.

Is Ultrafast available outside the US?

No. Workspaces that require inference residency outside the United States can’t use Ultrafast. Among Pro plans, only Pro 500 includes it, and at launch buying credits on Pro 100 or Pro 200 doesn’t unlock it.

Checked on 30 September 2026. Performance and speed figures are OpenAI’s own, and I haven’t reproduced them. The Pro 200 multipliers and credit grant come from The Next Web and daily.dev. Rollouts and eligibility vary by account.