Exclusive: Replit taps OpenAI’s low-cost Luna model for new ‘Free Mode’

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  "detected_at": "2026-08-19T13:00:00+00:00",
  "company": {
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    "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/08/19/exclusive-replit-taps-openais-low-cost-luna-model-for-new-free-mode-subscription-tier/",
    "title": "Exclusive: Replit taps OpenAI’s low-cost Luna model for new ‘Free Mode’",
    "author": "Emily Forlini",
    "excerpt": "Vibe coding company Replit debuted Free Mode today, a new feature powered by OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Luna model. The joint announcement, shared exclusively with Fortune, heralds an enhanced partnership between the two tech companies that will see them work on several future products, they said. Although Replit is calling the feature Free Mode, it still requires a paid subscription - $20 per month for the Core tier or $100 per month for Pro. But the idea is to inject more value into these subscriptions, and to remove the stress of burning through AI tokens. A user may, for example, chat, ideate, or run a simple task on Free Mode before tapping into the larger, limited budget of their subscription. Free Mode is now the default for Core and Pro users, an approach Michele Catasta, the president and head of AI at Replit, calls “radical.” He said the new service was made possible by OpenAI slashing costs on the Luna model by 80% on July 30. “A lot of tasks don’t require the frontier-level intelligence,” Catasta says. “It just requires smaller models that are faster and more affordable.” He added that GPT-5.6 Luna is both “very powerful and reliable.” When the Replit agent determines the task requires a different or more sophisticated model, it automatically re-routes the request “for the duration to get the task done, and then we fall back into Free Mode as soon as possible,” Catasta said...",
    "summary": "Replit and OpenAI announced an enhanced partnership to collaborate on several future products.",
    "planning": true,
    "image_url": "https://fortune.com/img-assets/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Sam-Amjad-e1787144021324.jpg?resize=1200,600",
    "confidence": 0.9,
    "published_at": "2026-08-19T13:00:00Z",
    "article_sentence": "The joint announcement, shared exclusively with Fortune, heralds an enhanced partnership between the two tech companies that will see them work on several future products, they said.",
    "related_company_name": "OpenAI",
    "related_company_domain": "openai.com"
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