Proposal: ChatGPT Deep ($50/month) — Making Codex Accessible to Individual Developers in Japan

[mhanayama]

I'd like to propose an intermediate subscription tier between Plus and Pro, called ChatGPT Deep, priced at $50/month.

I'm an AI engineer in Japan who uses Codex extensively for personal software development.

The challenge is not model capability. It's affordability relative to disposable income.

According to Japan's National Tax Agency, the average annual salary was approximately ¥4.78 million in 2025.

After mandatory social insurance contributions, income tax, and local inhabitant tax, an average salaried worker may take home roughly ¥3.8 million annually, depending on individual circumstances.

At an exchange rate of approximately ¥158 per USD, a $100/month subscription costs around ¥190,000 annually.

That's approximately 5% of an average Japanese employee's estimated annual take-home income — before paying for housing, food, utilities, or other essential living expenses.

For a hobbyist developer paying personally, that's a substantial financial commitment.

At the same time, Plus is insufficient for sustained agentic development. In my own workflow, I regularly exhaust the five-hour Codex usage allowance within just one or two hours of active development.

Codex has made sophisticated software development accessible to individuals, but the gap between subscription tiers creates a barrier to actually using that capability.

I'm not requesting unlimited access at a lower price. I'm proposing a tier designed for serious individual developers who need more capacity than Plus but cannot justify the financial commitment of Pro.

ChatGPT Deep — $50/month could bridge this gap.

A $50 tier would bring the annual subscription cost down to approximately 2.5% of estimated take-home income in Japan, making sustained personal development significantly more accessible.

This isn't simply a request for cheaper access. It's an opportunity to serve an emerging market of individual developers empowered by agentic coding.

I hope OpenAI will consider pricing accessibility in markets where USD-denominated subscriptions represent a substantial share of local disposable income.

References:

• Japan National Tax Agency, 2025 Statistical Survey of Actual Status for Salary in the Private Sector
• Japan Health Insurance Association, FY2026 employee insurance contribution rates