Cosmo Kramer: It's a write-off for them.
  Jerry:        How is it a write-off?
  Cosmo Kramer: They just write it off.
  Jerry:        Write it off what?
  Cosmo Kramer: Jerry, all these big companies, they write off everything.
  Jerry:        You don't even know what a write-off is. 
  Cosmo Kramer: Do you?
  Jerry:        No, I don't.
  Cosmo Kramer: But they do, and they're the ones writing it off.

My take - the $500/month is likely similar to the $200/month plan (albeit with Astra Ultrafast that consumes tokens ultrafast).

Or maybe it gives you just a little bit more tokens than older $200/month plan for plausible deniability:

    Maybe me: “you’re charging $500/month for what was $200/month earlier”

    Maybe OAI: “no we’re not!! You get *more* tokens than the older $200/month plan and did you hear, you get Astra Ultrafast access!”

    Maybe me: “oh really? How many more tokens??”

    Maybe OAI: “I’m sorry we can no longer share that information, it’s confidential. National security and all…”

I've talked to VP at my company and we both agreed $1000 for the time saved, is still 'worth it'.

Dev salaries are high and devs often have to realign buttons or change colors. We are not always working on complex ideas.

I rewrote a big piece of software from scratch....it had 0 docs. Documenting of classes and flow took me weeks. Complete rewrite took almost 2 years. I am confident that with AI I would be able to get this done in a few months.

You can also right off actual $6000 hardware