OpenAI is opening the ChatGPT tap wider for free users, but it is not giving away every control. The move is both a product upgrade and a fresh test of whether premium AI plans can hold their value as cheaper competitors close in.

The pressure has been building since GPT-5.6 Luna debuted in early July as OpenAI’s speed-focused model. Last week, the company cut prices on Luna and GPT-5.6 Terra unusually quickly after launch, amid growing competition from cheaper Chinese open-weight models.¹

This week, OpenAI is making Luna the default model for all ChatGPT users. The company says factual-error responses were 62% less common with Luna than with its prior default, GPT-5.5 Instant.¹ Greg Brockman cast the change as an access push, writing that OpenAI is bringing “unlimited text chats with Luna, a quite capable model, to free users.”Greg Brockman (gdb)²

The division between free access and paid extras remains deliberate. Free and Go users will receive a new Think button for higher-reasoning questions, while Plus and Pro subscribers get an updated GPT-5.6 Sol and a slider to choose how much reasoning the chatbot applies. OpenAI says Sol is designed to make fewer mistakes when answers turn on “dates, numbers, sources, rules, or assumptions.”³

On Thursday, the revised Sol and its reasoning slider are due for paid users. Next week, text-chat rate limits disappear for free and Go accounts, though image prompts and file uploads will remain capped.³ Sam Altman distilled the strategy more bluntly: “5.6 Sol much better in chat now and unlimited text chat for free users!”Sam Altman (sama)⁴

The bet is clear: make basic ChatGPT hard to resist, then persuade power users that precision, configurability and fewer mistakes are still worth paying for.