The upcoming paid version of ChatGPT won’t be as expensive as some feared.
On Wednesday, OpenAI announced the premium version will be $20 per month, down from the $42 per month the company previously flirted with last month.
The San Francisco lab has also settled on a name for the paid version: ChatGPT Plus. The paid tier promises to offer users interrupted access to the chatbot even during peak usage times. In addition, subscribers can expect faster response times to their queries and “priority access to new features and improvements,” the company said in a blog post.
“ChatGPT Plus is available to customers in the United States, and we will begin the process of inviting people from our waitlist over the coming weeks,” OpenAI added. Support for other countries will also arrive soon.
If you’re a free user, don’t worry. The standard version of ChatGPT isn’t going away. Instead, OpenAI noted: “By offering this subscription pricing, we will be able to help support free access availability to as many people as possible.”
Still, the free version of ChatGPT can sometimes become inaccessible if it's overloaded with users. So to ensure access anytime you want, expect to pay up.
Previously, OpenAI tested offering the paid version of ChatGPT for $42 per month. However, many people complained on the company’s Discord channel, saying the price was too high. In contrast, $20 per month puts the paid service on the same level as a Netflix Premium subscription, which should make it more palatable to at least some customers.