ChatGPT Service Disruption Affects Paid Users, OpenAI Confirms
OpenAI confirms service disruptions affecting ChatGPT paid users, linked to increased demand for new features.
Key Points
- • ChatGPT experienced a 90-minute service disruption affecting all paid users.
- • Service issues started around 8:30 a.m. ET and were primarily linked to the Conversations feature.
- • Disruptions coincided with increased usage of the new ChatGPT Agent feature.
- • Other OpenAI services remained operational during the outage.
On July 21, 2025, ChatGPT experienced significant service disruptions affecting all paid users for approximately 90 minutes, starting around 8:30 a.m. ET. Reports of technical errors peaked on outage-tracking platform DownDetector, which documented a surge in user complaints until about 9:45 a.m. ET, when the decrease in reports began, though issues persisted for some time thereafter.
OpenAI acknowledged the problem via their status page, indicating that there were "elevated errors on ChatGPT for all paid users" and confirmed that they were actively addressing the situation. The primary disruption impacted the "Conversations" component of ChatGPT. These outages coincided with increased usage of the recently introduced ChatGPT Agent feature, designed for complex task handling, which had been made available to users at varying subscription levels: $200 per month for Pro subscribers and $20 per month for Plus users. This uptick in traffic is believed to have contributed to the service strain.
Notably, on the day of the incident, other OpenAI services, including Playground and APIs, remained unaffected, indicating that the issues were specific to the ChatGPT platform. This outage follows a previous 15-hour service interruption last month but was not as extensive in terms of impact. OpenAI’s commitment to resolving this issue reflects their ongoing efforts to maintain service reliability for their users.
The disruption has raised questions among the user base about stability, especially for those relying on paid subscriptions for business and critical functions. OpenAI has assured users that they are working diligently to restore normal service conditions promptly, providing a communication channel for users to stay updated on the situation.