ChatGPT Professional plan priced at $42 per month surfaces online, but hasn’t announced any premium plans yet

ChatGPT, the chatbot launched by OpenAI, has reportedly started offering a professional plan to its users at a price of $42 (roughly Rs. 3,400) per month. No official announcement has yet been made by the company. However, OpenAI shared a waiting list for a pro tier with benefits listed earlier this month. This post did not imply any specific payment terms, but the company said it was looking to monetize ChatGPT, which stands for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer.

OpenAI wrote in an announcement a week ago: “We are starting to think about how to monetize ChatGPT (early thinking, nothing official to share yet). Our goal is to continue to improve and maintain the service, and monetization is one of the ways we are looking to ensure its long-term viability. We would like to chat with some people for about 15 minutes to get some quick feedback. If you would like to chat, please fill out this form (takes about 10 minutes to complete).

“Working on a professional version of ChatGPT; will deliver higher limits and faster performance,” Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI tweeted earlier this month with a link to the “waiting list” to test the updated version.

Work on a professional version of ChatGPT; will provide higher limits and faster performance. If you are interested, please join our waiting list here: https://t.co/Eh87OViRie

—Greg Brockman (@gdb) January 11, 2023

According to a LinkedIn post by Linas Belinas (via), OpenAI boasts a premium plan priced at $42 (roughly Rs. 3,400) per month. This version is supposed to offer exclusive benefits such as no downtime, faster response time and first access to new features. However, the message does not mention whether the user was able to sign up for the plan.

Several users then started noting the Professional Plan option on the website priced at $42 (about Rs 3,400). Zahid Khawaja, a Twitter user and developer who works on several AI projects, shared a video of the upgraded level in action on desktop and mobile and also posted a screenshot of its payment to OpenAI as evidence. As Khawaja points out, the system is significantly faster than the free version.

New ChatGPT rates! pic.twitter.com/j7cGtcDSSn

— Zahid Khawaja (@chillzaza_) January 21, 2023

While it is apparent that some users were able to sign up for the premium plan, there was no official announcement from OpenAI. Pricing may be part of a trial and may vary with official rollout. Many online users are speculate it’s a nod to the classic – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where the number 42 is the “answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.” It’s also worth mentioning that the free version of ChatGPT remains functional and available at the time of writing this story.

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