Week 28 Briefing: AI Pricing Updates (July 7-12, 2026)

Starting July 13, Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 model moves from an all-included Pro subscription to a base + usage credit model. Pro and Team subscribers must now draw from usage credits for Fable 5 queries. Input tokens cost $10 per million and output tokens cost $50 per million.

A heavy user consuming roughly 100M+ tokens per month previously paid a flat $20/month for Claude Pro. Under the new model, that same user will pay the $20 base fee plus approximately $50 in usage credits : a total of $70 per month. That represents a 3.5× increase in effective monthly cost.

Team workspaces with high token throughput will see the sharpest cost escalation. Anthropic has not announced volume discounts or committed-use tiers for Fable 5 usage credits as of this briefing.

Google has slashed the Gemini AI Plus subscription from $7.99/month to $4.99/month, a $3/month savings. The plan now includes 400GB of cloud storage, doubled from the previous 200GB allocation.

At $4.99, Gemini AI Plus now significantly undercuts ChatGPT Plus, which remains at $20/month. For users whose primary AI needs are text-based generation, summarization, and research, Gemini at this price point offers a 75% lower monthly cost compared to the leading competitor.

The storage bump to 400GB adds tangible value beyond AI access, making this plan competitive with standalone cloud storage offerings from Google One and other providers.

Notion has discontinued the $10 per user per month AI add-on as a standalone purchase. Existing add-on subscribers are being automatically upgraded to the Business plan, which carries a $20/user/month value, at no additional cost for the transition period.

For teams on the Plus plan who were paying $10/user for the AI add-on on top of their base subscription, this effectively means a free upgrade to Business-tier features. However, Free and Plus plan users who did not previously purchase the AI add-on will lose access to Notion AI entirely unless they upgrade to the Business plan at full price.

The long-term pricing implication is that Notion AI is now bundled exclusively into the Business tier, raising the floor price for AI features from $10/user to $20/user for new adopters.

OpenAI has unveiled the GPT-5.6 model family with three tiers: Sol at $1/M input and $4/M output, Terra at $2/M input and $8/M output, and Luna at $5/M input and $30/M output. The Luna tier introduces a new reasoning premium pricing category.

ChatGPT Plus remains unchanged at $20/month. Subscribers will have access to these models within their existing plan : no price increase for the consumer subscription tier. The API pricing is competitive with Anthropic’s Claude lineup, but the Luna tier at $30/M output positions it as the most expensive per-token option among major providers this week.

GitHub is piloting a flex billing model for Copilot that moves beyond traditional seat-based licensing. The pilot introduces a pay-per-active-committer structure being tested with select enterprise accounts. Instead of paying for every licensed seat regardless of usage, organizations would pay based on how many developers actively use Copilot in a given billing period.

Details remain limited as the pilot is in early stages. Pricing per active committer has not been publicly disclosed. For enterprises with variable developer activity : such as agencies with fluctuating project loads or seasonal development cycles : this could reduce costs compared to fixed seat licenses. However, for consistently active teams, costs could rise depending on the per-committer rate.