OpenAI releases a cheaper ChatGPT subscription

Jan 17, 2026 01:00 AM - 4 months ago 119368

Elissa Welle

is a NYC-based AI newsman and is presently supported by the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism. She covers AI companies, policies, and products.

OpenAI is expanding a low-cost subscription tier called ChatGPT Go to the US and the remainder of the world. Go was released successful India successful August and later became available successful different 170 countries anterior to Friday’s world release. “In markets wherever Go has been available, we’ve seen beardown take and regular mundane usage for tasks for illustration writing, learning, image creation, and problem-solving,” the company’s announcement stated.

For $8 per month, Go subscribers get much messages, record uploads, and image procreation than the free ChatGPT tier subscribers. The value slots Go betwixt the free type of the AI chatbot and the $20-a-month “Plus” subscription tier.

OpenAI says the Go tier is meant for group who want greater entree to the company’s accelerated type of the latest AI model, GPT-5.2 Instant. Currently, free users are constricted to 10 messages pinch GPT‑5.2 each 5 hours — aft that, and the chats move to the “mini version” of the model. Plus subscribers get 160 messages pinch GPT‑5.2 for each 3 hours. Given that the announcement says that users will get “10x” the messages, files, and images than the free tier, we tin conjecture that Go will get 100 messages pinch GPT-5.2 for who-knows-how-many hours.

The announcement did not specify the number of record uploads aliases images disposable each time to Go users. OpenAI does not supply the number of record uploads aliases images for immoderate of their ChatGPT tiers: free users person a “limited” number of record uploads and image generations, according to the pricing website, while Plus subscribers person a “check-mark” listed alternatively of an amount.

The representation and discourse model will beryllium greater for Go users than free users. Again, nonstop numbers are yet not known. The existent discourse model for non-reasoning requests is 16K for free users and 32K for Plus, while some tiers person a 196K discourse model for reasoning.

OpenAI says it will “soon” statesman running ads successful Go successful the US, while Plus and higher priced subscriptions will stay ad-free.

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