Price checkMonthly
FreeFreeGo$8/moPlus$20/mo
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All OpenAI Plans & Pricing

Plan Monthly Annual Best For
View all features by plan (compare side-by-side)

Free

  • Limited access to GPT-4o and other models
  • Limited messages, uploads, and image generation
  • Limited deep research and memory
  • Access on web, iOS, and Android

Go

  • More access to GPT-4o than Free tier
  • More messages, uploads, and image creation
  • Longer memory retention
  • May include ads

Plus

  • Advanced reasoning models
  • Expanded messages, uploads, and image creation
  • Expanded deep research and agent mode
  • Projects, tasks, and custom GPTs
  • Early access to new features

Pro $100

  • 5x the usage limits of Plus
  • 50 deep research sessions per month
  • Access to advanced reasoning models
  • Expanded Codex and agent mode usage
  • Priority access to new features

Pro $200

  • Maximum deep research and agent mode
  • Unlimited GPT-4o and file uploads
  • Unlimited and fastest image creation
  • Maximum memory and context
  • Priority-speed Codex agent
  • Research preview of new features

Business (annual)

  • Secure workspace with admin controls and SAML SSO
  • 60+ app integrations including Slack, Google Drive, and GitHub
  • No training on business data by default
  • GDPR and CCPA compliance
  • Minimum 2 seats

Business (monthly)

  • All Business annual features
  • Month-to-month billing with no annual commitment
  • Secure workspace with admin controls and SAML SSO
  • 60+ app integrations
  • No training on business data by default

Enterprise

  • Expanded context window for larger files and inputs
  • Enterprise security: SCIM, EKM, RBAC, and domain verification
  • Custom data retention policies and data residency options
  • 24/7 priority support with SLAs and custom legal terms
  • Volume discounts and invoicing
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What does OpenAI actually cost you?

Drag the slider. Pick a tier. Your projected spend updates as you go.

Tier
Billing
Your projected cost$200per month · $8/unit × 25units
Year 1 license$2.4K12 months at this rate
At a glance

List price by tier (annualized, per unit)

Per-unit list price across OpenAI's plans, annualized. Custom-priced tiers show a hatched bar.

FreeCustom
Go$96/yr
Plus$240/yr
Pro $100$1.2K/yr
Pro $200$2.4K/yr
Business (annual)$240/yr
Business (monthly)$300/yr
EnterpriseCustom
Real-world benchmark

Buyers actually pay a median of $600/yr for OpenAI contracts (Vendr deal flow, n=60). That's a contract total — the more seats, the more leverage to negotiate down.

Quick Answer
Last verified:
Medium confidence

OpenAI costs Free to $200 per month as of July 2026, with 8 plans available including a free tier. Plans: Free (free), Go at $8/month, Plus at $20/month, Pro $100 at $100/month, Pro $200 at $200/month, Business (annual) at $20/month, and Business (monthly) at $25/month. Enterprise pricing is available on request. The median contract is $600/year based on 60 verified purchases.

Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.

  • Free tier: Yes

OpenAI offers 8 pricing tiers: Free, Go, Plus, Pro $100, Pro $200, Business (annual), Business (monthly), Enterprise. A free plan is available. Paid plans include Go at $8/user/month, Plus at $20/user/month, Pro $100 at $100/user/month. The Go plan is light users who want more capacity than the free tier at a low monthly cost.

Compared to other ai productivity software, OpenAI is positioned at the budget-friendly price point.

  • Median contract: $600/yr from 60 purchases Thin data
  • 7 documented hidden costs beyond list price
  • Contracts auto-renew — Cancel anytime but non-retroactive refund policy — only most recent billing period eligible for refund
Last verified: | Sources: 1 pricing pages and reviews

How much does OpenAI cost?

OpenAI offers 8 pricing plans, starting with a free tier and scaling to custom enterprise pricing. Plans include Free (free), Go at $8/month, Plus at $20/month, Pro $100 at $100/month, Pro $200 at $200/month, Business (annual) at $20/month, Business (monthly) at $25/month, Enterprise (custom pricing).

OpenAI Pricing Overview

OpenAI has 8 pricing plans, including a free tier. Paid plans range from $0 to $200/month. The Free plan is free and is best for casual users exploring chatgpt with limited daily usage. The Go plan costs $8/month, best for light users who want more capacity than the free tier at a low monthly cost. The Plus plan costs $20/month, best for power users who need advanced reasoning, deep research, and agent capabilities. The Pro $100 plan costs $100/month, best for professionals needing 5x plus quotas and 50 deep research sessions per month. The Pro $200 plan costs $200/month, best for researchers and professionals requiring maximum ai capabilities and the highest usage limits. The Business (annual) plan costs $20/month, best for teams and businesses wanting a secure collaborative ai workspace billed annually. The Business (monthly) plan costs $25/month, best for teams needing the business plan with month-to-month flexibility. The Enterprise plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for large organizations requiring enterprise security, compliance, and dedicated support.

OpenAI contracts auto-renew, with a Monthly or annual depending on plan minimum commitment.

The median OpenAI customer pays $600/year based on 60 verified purchases.

There are at least 7 documented hidden costs beyond OpenAI's list price, including implementation, training, and add-on fees.

This pricing was last verified in June 9, 2026 from 1 independent source.

Try OpenAI Free

ChatGPT by OpenAI costs $8–$200/user/month as of 2026, with a free tier and seven paid plans. Paid subscriptions start at $8/month for the Go plan and rise to $200/month for the top-tier Pro plan.

The most popular plan, Plus, is $20/user/month and includes advanced reasoning models, deep research, agent mode, and expanded usage limits. A mid-tier Pro plan at $100/month (launched April 2026) offers 5x Plus quotas and 50 deep research sessions per month.

For teams, the Business plan is or $25/user/month on a monthly basis, and includes a secure workspace with admin controls, SAML SSO, and over 60 app integrations. Enterprise pricing is custom and available through OpenAI's sales team.

How OpenAI Pricing Compares

Compare OpenAI pricing against top alternatives in AI Productivity.

Clockwise $7.75-$7.75/user/month Compare → Grammarly Business $12-$30/user/month Compare → Motion $19-$49/user/month Compare →

Compare OpenAI vs Alternatives

Before committing to OpenAI, compare pricing with these 3 alternatives in the same category.

VSClockwise
From $7.75/user/month

Individuals and small teams getting started with AI calendar management and basic scheduling

Full comparison
VSGrammarly Business
From $12/user/month

Individual users testing basic writing assistance features

Full comparison
VSMotion
From $19/user/month

Individual professionals and small teams needing AI-powered scheduling and task management

Full comparison

All OpenAI alternatives & migration guides

What Companies Actually Pay for OpenAI

The median OpenAI buyer pays $600/year based on 60 verified purchase transactions.

What companies actually pay $600/yr Median across 60 purchases Thin data
Flagship models in this provider's catalog
Model Input /1M Output /1M Blended /1M
openai/gpt-5.5-pro $30.00 $180.00 —
openai/gpt-5.4-pro $30.00 $180.00 —
openai/o1-pro $150.00 $600.00 —
openai/o3-pro $20.00 $80.00 —
openai/gpt-5-pro $15.00 $120.00 —
Review scores
Trustpilot 1.2out of 5 (26)
Third-party review aggregates, as of Jul 2026
Top pricing complaints
Billing and cancellation process is opaque and difficult to navigateCustomer support is unresponsive, uses copy-pasted replies, and fails to resolve issuesCodex bugs including infinite loops and duplicated output consume usage credits without producing resultsUndisclosed usage limits disrupt paid subscriber workflows without warning
Source: OpenRouter API — medians aggregated from 60 models routed. Reflects router-surface pricing (may include modest markup vs direct provider rates).

OpenAI Year 1 Total Cost by Company Size

Real deployment costs including licenses, implementation, training, and admin — not just the sticker price.

Individual Professional — Plus Plan $240 Year 1 total
$20/month
Total $240

Single user on Plus plan for creative and professional work, using ChatGPT for content research, writing, and ideation. No API usage.

Individual Power User — Pro Plan $2,400 Year 1 total
$200/month
Total $2,400

Heavy user needing maximum compute, extended thinking, and priority access. Subscription at $200/month based on current Pro $200 tier.

Small Team — Business Plan (Annual, 10 seats) $24,000 Year 1 total
$2,000/month
Total $24,000

10-person team on Business annual plan at $20/user/month. Includes SSO, admin controls, and no data training by default.

API Developer — Moderate Usage ~$16,250/year ($1,354/month at median API rates) Year 1 total
$1,354/month at median API rates
Total ~$16,250/year ($1,354/month at median API rates)

Developer using GPT-5 API at median OpenRouter pricing ($1.25 input / $10 output per 1M tokens). Moderate usage of ~5M input + 1M output tokens/month.

Enterprise — Vendr Median $108,000 Year 1 total

Enterprise buyer negotiated through Vendr's deal flow. Median annual contract based on 171 real purchases.

Current tier data

How OpenAI Pricing Compares

Software Starting Price Top Price
OpenAI Free $200/month
Clockwise Free $7.75/user/month
Grammarly Business Free $12/user/month
Hugging Face Free $50/user/month
Motion $29/user/month $446/user/month
Notion AI Free $20/user/month

Detailed pricing comparisons:

Browse all AI Productivity pricing →

7 OpenAI Hidden Costs Beyond the List Price

Beyond the listed price, OpenAI has at least 7 documented hidden costs that can significantly increase total cost of ownership.

Watch for 7 hidden costs
  • Unexpected API Cost Spikes $50-$500+/incident
    critical 2 sources
    Trustpilot "my API usage skyrocketed to $122 USD within half a day without my knowledge or any notification"
    Reddit "I burned through $88 in less than an hour!"
  • Subscription Cancellation Failures & Continued Billing $20-$200/month in erroneous charges
    high 2 sources
    Trustpilot "Despite an initial attempt to cancel my premium plan, the automated billing continued for several subsequent cycles."
    Trustpilot "I was unknowingly charged $29.99 for an OpenAI subscription renewal that I was never clearly informed about in advance."
  • Undisclosed Usage Limits on Paid Plans 10-30% of license costs in lost productivity
    high 2 sources
    Trustpilot "After generating around 15 images, my access to image generation was suddenly blocked for more than 18 hours. This caused delays and disrupted my workflow."
    Trustpilot "I kept running out of messages using Codex on the OpenAI Plus plan. There would be a pill that reads upgrade or buy more credits."
  • Business Plan Shared Usage Pool $20-$25/user/month with reduced per-user capacity
    medium 1 source
    Trustpilot "The upgrade did not reset my current messaging. It also did not add any extra messaging from my business partners' OpenAI Plus account. Everything is shared... The Codex messages are definitely less on the Business Plan."
  • Premium Model Pricing Tiers (API) $1,000-$100,000+/month for heavy API users
    high 2 sources
    Hacker News "I'm on a ~$200 subscription (guessing that counts as way beyond 'base plan') and have no pay-as-you-go pricing at all, using the OpenAI APIs would be way too expensive for me."
    openrouter "openai/gpt-5.5-pro input_per_1m_usd: 30.0, output_per_1m_usd: 180.0"
  • Web Search & Built-in Tool Add-on Costs $30-$45/1,000 queries for grounded/search features
    medium 1 source
    Hacker News "Web Search: $30 and $25 per 1K queries for GPT-4o search and 4o-mini search. File search: $2.50 per 1K queries and file storage at $0.10/GB/day. First 1GB is free."
  • Realtime Voice API Cost $60/hour vs $7-$15/hour for alternatives
    high 1 source
    Reddit "After testing it on OpenAI platform, we found that a simple call costs about $60 per hour, or $1/min... OpenAI's tech is cool, but it's way too expensive for most businesses right now. It's about 4-10 times pricier than other good options"
Tip

Ask your OpenAI sales rep about these costs upfront. Getting them in writing before signing can save you from surprise charges later.

Full hidden costs breakdown →

Intelligence sourced from 5 independent sources
Trustpilot Consumer reviews Reddit User discussions Hacker News Tech community openrouter Vendr Verified buyer transactions
Key claims include inline source attribution. Data verified against multiple independent sources. 20 source citations total.

OpenAI Contract Terms

OpenAI contracts auto-renew and cannot be downgraded mid-term. Changes require Cancel anytime but non-retroactive refund policy — only most recent billing period eligible for refund. These terms are sourced from verified buyer experiences.

Contract Terms
Auto-Renewal Yes
Cancellation Notice Cancel anytime but non-retroactive refund policy — only most recent billing period eligible for refund
Minimum Commitment Monthly or annual depending on plan
Mid-Term Downgrade Not allowed
Payment Terms Monthly or annual billing; Business plan billed per seat
Price Escalation No published schedule; subscription tier pricing has shifted over time (e.g., Plus remained $20/month but Pro tier added at $100-$200/month)
Note

Users report OpenAI cannot help migrate chat histories when downgrading from Business back to individual Plus plan

Based on 2 verified sources

How to Negotiate OpenAI Pricing

OpenAI contracts are negotiable. These 6 tactics are sourced from real buyer experiences and procurement specialists.

Negotiation Playbook 6 tactics
Commit to Annual Business Plan high success

The Business plan billed annually at $20/user/month saves ~20% compared to the monthly rate of $25/user/month. For teams of 10+, this represents meaningful savings without any negotiation required.

Current tier data
Use Cheaper Models for Non-Critical Tasks high success

Route simple queries to GPT-5 Nano ($0.05/$0.40 per 1M tokens) or GPT-5 Mini ($0.25/$2.00) instead of flagship models. HN analysis suggests 70-80% of API calls don't require the most expensive model.

HN community (2026-03-12)
Set Hard API Spending Limits high success

Use OpenAI's API dashboard to set monthly hard limits before starting any project. Users report $88-$122 charges from a single session in agent mode. Hard limits prevent runaway costs.

Reddit/Trustpilot user reports
Leverage Prompt Caching high success

API models with cached_input_per_1m_usd pricing (e.g., GPT-5 at $0.125 cached vs $1.25 uncached) offer 10x savings on repeated context. Structure prompts to maximize cache hits in multi-turn applications.

OpenRouter pricing data (2026-07-08)
Enterprise Volume Negotiation medium success

Vendr data shows median enterprise buyers pay $108,000/year based on 171 purchases, suggesting significant volume exists for negotiation. Enterprise contracts are custom-quoted and likely include volume discounts not available on self-serve plans.

Vendr (deal flow)
Monitor Model Deprecation Cycles medium success

OpenAI retires models frequently (e.g., GPT-4o was retired causing user complaints). Lock in API integrations on dated model versions (e.g., gpt-4o-2024-11-20) rather than aliases to avoid forced migrations and pricing changes.

Trustpilot reviews (2026-03)
High success Medium Low / difficult

Full negotiation guide →

OpenAI Price History

Pricing changes CostBench has tracked for OpenAI, verified across 2 snapshots going back to 2026Q2.

  1. OpenAI tier restructure

    Changed from 6 to 8 pricing tiers

  2. OpenAI tier renamed

    "Pro" renamed to "Pro $100"

  3. OpenAI tier renamed

    "Business" renamed to "Pro $200"

  4. OpenAI tier renamed

    "Enterprise" renamed to "Business (annual)"

Price stable over 0.1 years

View OpenAI's full price history →

OpenAI Pricing FAQ

01 How much does ChatGPT cost?

ChatGPT has a free tier and paid plans ranging from $8 to $200 per user per month. The Go plan is $8/month, Plus is $20/month, the mid-tier Pro plan is $100/month, and the top-tier Pro plan is $200/month. Business plans for teams start at $20/user/month (annual) or $25/user/month (monthly).

02 What is the cheapest paid ChatGPT plan?

The Go plan is the cheapest paid option at $8/user/month. It provides more messages and uploads than the free tier, along with more image creation capacity and longer memory. It may include ads.

03 Is there a free version of ChatGPT?

Yes. OpenAI offers a free tier of ChatGPT with limited access to GPT-4o and other models, limited messages and image generation, and access on web, iOS, and Android. Limits are lower than any paid plan.

04 What is the difference between ChatGPT Plus ($20) and Pro ($100 or $200)?

Plus at $20/month gives expanded access to advanced models and agent mode. The $100/month Pro plan (launched April 2026) provides 5x the usage limits of Plus and 50 deep research sessions per month. The $200/month Pro plan offers the maximum limits across all features, including unlimited GPT-4o usage, fastest image generation, and priority-speed Codex access.

05 How much does ChatGPT Business cost?

The Business plan is or $25/user/month on a monthly billing cycle. It includes a secure workspace with admin controls, SAML SSO, 60+ app integrations, and a no-training-on-business-data policy.

06 Does OpenAI offer Enterprise pricing?

Yes. OpenAI's Enterprise plan has custom pricing negotiated through their sales team. It adds expanded context windows, enterprise security features (SCIM, EKM, RBAC), custom data retention policies, data residency options, and 24/7 priority support with SLAs.

07 Can I cancel my OpenAI subscription at any time?

Yes, but OpenAI's refund policy is non-retroactive — they typically only refund the most recent billing period if billing continued after a cancellation attempt. Multiple users report the cancellation interface is confusing and lacks confirmation mechanisms. Document your cancellation steps and monitor your payment method after canceling.

08 How much does the OpenAI API cost compared to the subscription?

API pricing is usage-based and can be significantly higher than subscription rates for heavy users. The median OpenAI provider rate on OpenRouter is $1.75/1M input tokens and $10/1M output tokens, but flagship models like GPT-5.5 Pro cost $30/1M input and $180/1M output. A $200/month subscription is generally far more cost-effective for end users than equivalent API usage, which is why subscriptions exist.

09 Does upgrading from Plus to Business give more message capacity?

Not necessarily on a per-user basis. The Business plan pools usage across all seats rather than adding capacity per user. One user reported that upgrading from individual Plus to Business did not reset or increase their Codex messaging limits, and shared the pool with a non-Codex-using partner. Evaluate actual capacity needs before upgrading teams.

10 Are there free or discounted plans for nonprofits or startups?

No specific nonprofit, startup, or education discount programs were found in the source data. The Free plan ($0/month) provides limited access to GPT-3.5 and limited GPT-4o. The Go plan at $8/month offers an entry-level paid option. Enterprise pricing is custom and may include negotiated rates for large organizations.

11 What happens to my data on the Business plan?

The Business plan includes controls over data usage for model training, unlike the Free and Plus plans. However, specific data retention terms and configurations should be reviewed in OpenAI's current terms of service, as these details change and were not clearly documented in the available sources.

Is this pricing incorrect? — we'll verify and update it.