What customers are paying
A US bank with more than $7 billion in assets doubled the number of ChatGPT seats available to staff, bringing access to 500 employees. It pays less than $7 per user, rather than the usual $20 or more, with no additional charge for the extra seats.
OpenAI says some reductions reflect more efficient models and infrastructure, including its Sol and Luna model lines. But the company is also buying market share at the expense of its own margins.
The pressure behind the discounts
An investor note says Anthropic’s growth slowed from the second quarter to the third. Both companies are also facing more price pressure from China, where new DeepSeek and Kimi models deliver comparable results at a fraction of the cost.
I think the discounts are more revealing than the growth comparison: OpenAI is willing to price aggressively even as lower-cost rivals narrow the gap. The announcement does not say how long these deals last, or how much of the savings customers can expect to keep. If the lower prices depend on ongoing concessions rather than lasting efficiency gains, the customer wins now—but the economics of the switch remain unsettled.
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