The price of ChatGPT Plus could more than double in the next five years

AI costs money

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If you want the smartest AI and the most features fromChatGPT, you can currently pay $20 (about £15 / AU$29) a month toOpenAIforChatGPTPlus – but that subscription fee could more than double over the next five years.

That’s according to a report from theNew York Times, apparently based on internal company documents from OpenAI. The first price bump, an extra $2 a month, is tipped to be coming before the end of 2024.

After that, we can expect OpenAI to “aggressively raise” the cost of ChatGPT Plus to $44 (about £33 / AU$64) a month by 2029. There are currently around 10 million people paying for ChatGPT Plus, the NYT report says.

We’re now well used to digital subscription servicesbumping up their pricesevery so often, and it seems ChatGPT Plus is going to be no different in that regard – though there may well be new features and new AI models alongside the price increases.

‘Burning through piles of money’

The main reason for the projected price hike for ChatGPT Plus is clear: powering the AI service costs a lot. The new report says OpenAI is “burning through piles of money”, and is on course to lose $5 billion across the course of 2024.

While monthly revenue is now up to $300 million, and annual sales are expected to be $3.7 billion this year (and $11.6 billion next year), OpenAI remains very firmly in the red, as per the documents that the NYT has managed to gain access to.

Behind the scenes, OpenAI is looking to raise around $7 billion in outside funding, which would value the company at a cool $150 billion – around the level of a Goldman Sachs, an Uber, or an AT&T. There continues to be turbulence behind the scenes though, with three executives quitting the companyin the last week.

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None of this necessarily affects end users though – at least not until the price rises start. In recent days, OpenAI haspushed out improvementsto the ChatGPT 4o-mini model, and rolled out thechatbot’s Advanced Voice modeto more users.

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Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you’ll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.

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