OpenAI Wants To Slash Prices After Altman Said Steep Costs Were ‘Huge Issue,’ Report Says

BreakingBusinessOpenAI Wants To Slash Prices After Altman Said Steep Costs Were ‘Huge Issue,’ Report SaysBySiladitya Ray,Forbes Staff. Siladitya Ray is a New Delhi-based Forbes news team reporter.Follow AuthorJun 11, 2026, 08:10am EDTToplineOpenAI is considering major price cuts for its AI tools in a bid to compete with rival Anthropic, according to a Wall Street Journal report, as both companies prepare to go public later this year and the steep usage cost prompts some companies to scale back or limit usage.OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently acknowledged that the rising costs of AI tokens is becoming a "huge issue" for enterprise customers.Anadolu via Getty ImagesKey FactsAccording to the Journal, OpenAI’s planned price cuts will focus on its tokens—the units used to track AI tool usage for billing—as the ChatGPT maker expects similar moves from Anthropic. Instead of flat monthly subscriptions—which have stringent usage caps and other limits—most major business customers use metered billing via tokens for AI products and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently acknowledged that the rising costs of tokens have become a “huge issue.”Speaking at an OpenAI event earlier this month, Altman said it was almost becoming a “meme” now to say a company has used up its entire budget allocation for AI tokens in Q1, prompting executives to ask him, “Can you make this more efficient?” It’s unclear how OpenAI plans to implement this token price cut and if such cuts will be applied across their existing AI models, including the flagship GPT‑5.5 Pro.At the event, Altman said the company is continuing to push on efficiency more with its models and added: “We’ll have a lot of ways we can help people get more value for less spend,” without offering specific details. if (!window.cnxel) { window.cnxel = {}; window.cnxel.cmd = []; var iframe = document.createElement('iframe'); iframe.style.display = 'none'; iframe.onload = function() { var iframeDoc = iframe.contentWindow.document; var scrip...