OpenAI paused new Pro sign-ups, citing demand for the Astra model

TechCrunch reports OpenAI has paused new sign-ups for its $200-a-month ChatGPT Pro tier from 10 September, citing infrastructure strain from demand for the Astra model that launched on 3 September. TechCrunch quotes OpenAI's Thibault Sottiaux saying the company took "the smallest step that allows us to continue giving the broadest access possible", and that demand for Astra is "really unprecedented".

What is paused, and what is not

Only the ChatGPT Pro tier is closed to new customers, according to the TechCrunch account. The API, the ChatGPT Go plan, the Plus plan, Business, and Enterprise remain open. Existing Pro subscribers keep their access. OpenAI did not tell TechCrunch how long the pause will run, and did not publish a daily sign-up number or a capacity figure.

The Pro plan is the tier that carries the highest-cost usage of the newest models, so it is the one that puts the most load on the same GPU pool serving API traffic. OpenAI's stated reason is that closing it to new users is the smallest step that keeps the rest of the product line available at the promised throughput.

What Sottiaux told TechCrunch

The second Sottiaux quote in the piece is that he has "not seen anything like it until now", meaning demand for a single model release. OpenAI told TechCrunch the day before that a hold might become necessary, and it was announced the following day. The company's framing is that Astra represents a step up in reasoning, coding, and computer use, and that the new capabilities are what is drawing the traffic.

TechCrunch is the single source for the announcement and the quotes. OpenAI has not published a status-page post or a blog entry naming the pause, so the concrete facts here are the ones TechCrunch has: the date, the tier affected, the tiers not affected, the stated reason, and two Sottiaux quotes.

What a team about to expand Pro has to do

If a team was planning to add seats to the Pro tier this week, that plan is on hold at OpenAI's end and there is no reopening date. The two options that remain are the API, where Astra is already available at published token pricing, and the lower plan tiers, where teams that were on Pro purely for the message quotas can switch to ChatGPT Go or Plus for now.

The indirect effect is on capacity planning against the API. OpenAI has limited demand inside its own product because the model launch needed more computing capacity than it had. Astra API rate limits stayed stable in the last several days, but a company that is willing to give up new subscription revenue to keep the API stable is telling API customers that spare capacity is small. Teams whose SLAs assume worst-case Astra throughput should watch their own rate-limit responses over the next few days rather than assume a pause on Pro means the API side has spare capacity.

Source

• OpenAI puts Pro subscriptions on hold due to Astra demand, TechCrunch, 10 September 2026.