OpenAI's $20 ChatGPT Plus plan outshines unofficially released $42 Professional tier

OpenAI announced on Wednesday the launch of ChatGPT Plus, a pilot subscription plan that costs $20 per month. It is much cheaper than the earlier reported $42 per month Professional tier, which was welcomed by the public with mixed reactions.

The latest offering includes access to ChatGPT even during peak times, faster response times, and priority access to the chatbot’s new features and improvements, according to OpenAI.

“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 said. “We plan to expand access and support to additional countries and regions soon.”

Despite the launch of the subscription, OpenAI promised that free access to ChatGPT will remain.

“By offering this subscription pricing, we will be able to help support free access availability to as many people as possible,” OpenAI added.

The current pilot subscription plan is different from the earlier “Professional” plan shared by some users weeks ago. The users revealed that the plan, though not yet officially released by OpenAI, costs $42 a month.

OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman first shared the news about the Professional tier in January and said it “will offer higher limits & faster performance.”

Zahid Khawaja, one of the users with access to the paid tier, shared a video of the ChatGPT and described the performance as “pretty fast.” However, while it proved Brockman’s words, many expressed negative comments about the plan’s pricing, saying $42 could be too much for some users.

On the other hand, some believed that with the additional ChatGPT benefits and continuous improvements that OpenAI would introduce to the chatbot, “$42 is a steal.” However, it is important to note that the benefits detailed in the Professional tier are the same as those mentioned by OpenAI in the Plus plan. This raises the question of whether OpenAI still has a plan to officially launch the Professional tier or further improve it through better feature additions in order to better differentiate it from the Plus plan.

We will update this story as soon as we get more details regarding the matter.