GPT-4.5 has an API price of $75/1M input and $150/1M output. ChatGPT Plus users are going to get 5 queries per month with this level of pricing.
OpenAI drops GPT-5.2 “Code Red” vibes, big benchmark jumps, higher API pricing. Worth it?
GPT API vs Pro Subscription - Cost Effective?
How is it with pricing
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OpenAI released GPT-5.2 on December 11, 2025, introducing three variants Instant, Thinking, and Pro across paid ChatGPT tiers and the API.
OpenAI reports GPT-5.2 Thinking beats or ties human experts 70.9% across 44 occupations and produces those deliverables >11× faster at <1% of expert cost.
On technical performance, it hits 80.0% on SWE-bench Verified, 100% on AIME 2025 (no tools), and shows a large step up in abstract reasoning with ARC-AGI-2 Verified at 52.9% (Thinking) / 54.2% (Pro) compared to 17.6% for GPT-5.1 Thinking.
It also strengthens long-document work with near-perfect accuracy up to 256k tokens, plus 400k context and 128k max output, making multi-file and long-report workflows far more practical.
The competitive narrative matters too: WIRED reported an internal OpenAI “code red” amid competition, though OpenAI leadership suggested the launch wasn’t explicitly pulled forward for that reason.
Pricing is the main downside: $1.75/M input and $14/M output for GPT-5.2, while GPT-5.2 Pro jumps to $21/M input and $168/M output.
For those who’ve tested it does it materially improve your workflows (docs, spreadsheets, coding), or does it feel like incremental gains packaged with strong benchmark messaging?