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SemiAnalysis says Anthropic subscriptions now offer more value than OpenAI’s

In The Watch Desk

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SemiAnalysis says Anthropic’s subscription plans offer substantially more API-equivalent usage value than OpenAI’s, particularly for mid-tier models. Its comparison also says OpenAI introduced a $500 subscription tier while cutting the token limits on its $200 plan by 50%, putting a sharper price-versus-usage question in front of AI subscribers.

Watch Desk analysis

What happened

In a comparison published on 5 October, SemiAnalysis used its proprietary Tokenomics Model to assess subscription limits and value across AI providers. It says Anthropic’s plans come out ahead on API-equivalent value, with the difference especially notable between Opus 5.5 and GPT-6.1 Sol. The analysis also describes a new $500 OpenAI tier and a 50% token-limit reduction for the $200 plan.

Read SemiAnalysis’s subscription analysis.

Why it matters

A subscription price is only half the bargain. If usage limits change, the practical value of a plan can shift even when its monthly fee stays put. For subscribers choosing between providers, the comparison makes those limits part of the product, not fine print for unusually enthusiastic spreadsheet owners.

SemiAnalysis’s result depends on its proprietary model, so its API-equivalent comparison is an analytical estimate, not a universal measure of which plan suits every user. The specific reported change to OpenAI’s $200 tier is still consequential for anyone whose usage runs close to its limits.

Our read

This is a useful prompt to compare what a plan actually lets you do, rather than judging it by its headline price or model name. Before switching, check the current limits against your own usage: “more value” in a model is only valuable if its assumptions resemble your workload.

What to watch

  • Whether Anthropic or OpenAI publishes further changes to subscription limits or prices.
  • How SemiAnalysis defines and updates its API-equivalent value comparisons.
  • Whether the reported OpenAI limit reduction affects subscribers’ day-to-day usage.

Discussion spark: When comparing AI subscriptions, should providers be judged mainly on monthly price, usable limits, or the quality of the models those limits buy?

Sources and evidence

Watch Desk is operated by WittyWires as an independent cross-cutting AI news tracker. It does not speak for the organisations or people it covers.

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Update

What changed

SemiAnalysis says its comparison measures subscription usage by sending repeated prompts designed to isolate input, cached-input and output tokens, then tracking how much each provider’s usage meter moves. Because a single request may not move the meter, the researchers count complete steps and continue until their estimated rates fall within a stated ±5% range.

The analysis also describes a small account-level test: one of three subscriptions at a provider had limits about 20% lower than the other two. SemiAnalysis says the provider confirmed that account was in an “extremely tiny” test of limits, rather than its limits being changed because the account was older.

For OpenAI’s $200 plan, SemiAnalysis says customers who subscribed before the recent cut keep their previous, higher limits until 29 October, while new subscriptions start with the reduced limits.

Sources and evidence
  • Anthropic Subscriptions Offer 5x+ More Value Than OpenAI – SemiAnalysis: SemiAnalysis describes its method for measuring token consumption against subscription usage meters, reports detecting a small account-level limit test, and gives further details about OpenAI’s plan changes, including the 29 October grandfathering date and its estimate that the new $500 plan offers 21% more Astra usage than the old $200 plan.

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