OpenAI Revenue Shift: From High-Priced Subscriptions to Low-Price + Advertising

According to The Information, OpenAI anticipated at the beginning of the year that the affordable subscription ChatGPT Go will see a surge of approximately 36 times to 112 million subscribers this year. Go charges $8 per month in the United States and about $5 per month in other countries like India; correspondingly, subscribers of the $20 per month ChatGPT Plus are expected to decline by 80%, down to about 9 million, and although the number of users for the most expensive Pro plan will double, their proportion will be less than 1%.

This means that OpenAI is shifting its revenue focus from high-priced subscriptions to low-priced subscriptions plus advertising. Over the past three years, ChatGPT Plus has been the core source of the company's consumer revenue; now, OpenAI hopes to expand the pool of paying users with lower prices and then increase overall monetization capabilities through advertising.

OpenAI expects that, by the end of this year, the proportion of Go among paying users will rise from 7% last year to 92%, while the Plus proportion will drop from 92% to 7%, indicating that a significant part of Go's growth comes from high-priced subscription users downgrading. Overall, OpenAI anticipates that consumer subscription users will more than double this year, reaching 122 million, and will reach 306 million by 2030.