ChatGPT Plus could eventually cost almost $50 a month

OpenAI sparked the current generative AI craze with ChatGPT, and the company also offers a ChatGPT Plus subscription if you need faster access, additional features, and other extras. Unfortunately, it sounds like we should expect hefty price hikes in the future.

Documents reviewed by the New York Times reveal that the AI company plans to raise the cost of its $20/month ChatGPT Plus subscription by $2 by the end of the year.

Unfortunately, the price increases might not stop here as OpenAI will apparently raise the price of its AI subscription to a massive $44 a month over the next five years.

It’s unclear if the company will offer additional subscription tiers for people who can’t afford to splash out nearly $50 a month. Otherwise, we could totally see ChatGPT Plus subscribers jumping ship to the likes of Google and Microsoft’s AI services, which currently cost $20 a month. But there’s no guarantee these rivals will maintain this pricing, either.

This news also comes after various streaming services issued price hikes in the last couple of years. More recently, YouTube Premium received a major price hike in global markets, with some markets seeing an increase of almost 40%. Disney also announced a series of price increases for Disney Plus, ESPN Plus, and Hulu in August 2024. So between these increases and the apparent ChatGPT Plus hikes, it looks like there’s no relief on the horizon.