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ChatGPT price queries have been persistent since the free-to-try OpenAI chat bot gained popularity. So how much is it?
Well, OpenAI seems to be working on a tiered answer. While there are no obvious plans to stop the ChatGPT model from being free to use, it seemed that a ‘professional plan’ could be rolled out. Read on for more information
ChatGPT price plans
ChatGPT free
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is free to use, and anyone can do so. This free version does come with some drawbacks for now.
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While the company works to stabilize compute requirements with daily fluctuations of users, there will be outages. Even if there isn’t an outage, users have reported that response times from ChatGPT can sometimes be slow – presumably if it is dealing with a large number of requests.
Nonetheless, general access to this free version of ChatGPT is available to practically everyone, depending on its availability in your country. This free access allows you to use the AI tool to help with anything from writing posts for blogs to creating business plans, and it’s a lot of power and AI-based innovation at your disposal.
ChatGPT Pro
Across the weekend of January 21-22, some visitors to OpenAI’s ChatGPT page spotted ‘professional plan’ pricing of $42 per month. The option was reportedly shown to some registered users and was not yet widely available.
The existence of ChatGPT Pro was proven by Zhahid Khawaja a developer who tweeted out a video of his own access to the plan. However, there have been no recent public updates on this plan from OpenAI.
It is unclear if it will continue to be rolled out as a plan, and if or when it will have a wider pool of users access it. Its benefits are impressive though, being the same as GPT Plus (below), but with reported priority access to testing new features.
ChatGPT Plus
ChatGPT Plus was announced at the end of January 2023 and in relation to ChatGPT Pro would be one of the lower-cost plans. You can get access to this paid version of ChatGPT for a monthly subscription of $20.
The subscription model was launched in the US initially, and may additionally roll out to wider regions when wider access is available. According to OpenAI, the GPT Plus subscription plan will have the following benefits:
Available even when demand is high
This avoids the notice seen by users attempting access during times of heavy load: “ChatGPT is at capacity right now. Get notified when we’re back”.
Constant access, even at peak times when active users are higher, is great for those who are trying to hit a deadline and need to use the ai chatbot.
Faster response speed
You’ll also experience a faster response time to your prompts, which has obvious benefits for those using it for business and working against deadlines.
ChatGPT Price – Final thoughts
At release, ChatGPT was completely free, and it still is if you’re okay with some of the drawbacks. However, OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, tweeted on December 5th:
“…We will have to monetize it somehow at some point; the compute costs are eye-watering”.
That’s proven to be true as the professional and plus plans roll out. It’s not impossible that there will be additional pricing changes going forward either, as Pro and Plus options continue to be developed.
As popular and innovative as ChatGPT is, price is always a consideration, and, with the growing number of ChatGPT alternatives, OpenAI needs to balance costs and availability with discoverability and access for those keen to test. User feedback will also be crucial in ensuring that new versions of the ai chatbot are actually worth it for a variety of use cases, especially with the competition ramping up as of late. We’ll keep an eye on the ChatGPT price going forward, and a lot of other interesting areas being opened up in the AI-powered space.
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