ChatGPT's Deep Research is now launching for $20/month Pro users, but not everyone's happy about it

OpenAI has rolled out its Deep Research feature to ChatGPT Plus users, a tool previously available only to the $200/month Pro, Team, and Enterprise subscribers.

The feature helps users create detailed research reports with AI, making analysis more powerful. But many are debating its price and limits.

Deep Research is still restricted, even for paying users. Plus subscribers, who pay $20 per month, get only 10 queries per month. Meanwhile, Pro users paying $200 per month receive unlimited access. Critics argue that OpenAI is playing catch-up, especially after Elon Musk’s xAI introduced Grok’s DeepSearch for free.

On X (formerly Twitter), reactions were mixed. Some users welcomed the addition, but others felt OpenAI was forced into it by competition.

“You would have continued to charge as much as you possibly can for it had it not been for Grok’s DeepSearch being free,” one user posted. Others called for OpenAI to increase the request limit for Plus users, who paid a big chunk amount of money for the subscription.

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, defended the decision, calling Deep Research one of his “favorite things we have ever shipped.”

As expected, it’s also not yet launching for European users at the time of publishing.

“Deep research is OpenAI’s next agent that can do work for you independently—you give it a prompt, and ChatGPT will find, analyze, and synthesize hundreds of online sources to create a comprehensive report at the level of a research analyst,” OpenAI describes the feature.