The cost of ChatGPT Plus could more than double in the next five years.

If you are willing to pay a bit more for access to ChatGPT Plus, you may need to prepare for a rise in the subscription fee. Currently, users can access ChatGPT Plus services for $20 a month (approximately £15 / AU$29), but this fee is expected to double over the next five years.

According to a recent report based on internal company documents, the first increase is anticipated to be $2 monthly and will occur before the end of 2024. Subsequently, it is expected that OpenAI will "aggressively" raise the cost of ChatGPT Plus to $44 (around £33 / AU$64) per month by 2029. Currently, around 10 million people are paying for this subscription.

Price hikes in digital subscription services have become common, and it seems that ChatGPT Plus will follow this trend. It is important to note that this increase could be accompanied by new features and artificial intelligence models.

The main reason behind this price increase is the high cost of maintaining the AI service. It has been mentioned that OpenAI is "burning through large amounts of money" and is projected to incur losses of $5 billion during 2024. Although monthly revenues have reached $300 million and annual sales are projected at $3.7 billion for this year (and $11.6 billion for next year), the company is still operating in the red, according to the leaked internal documents.

Internally, OpenAI is looking to raise around $7 billion in external funding, which would value the company at about $150 billion, similar to companies like Goldman Sachs, Uber, or AT&T. However, the company is facing some turmoil, as three of its executives have resigned in the past week.

So far, these changes have not directly affected end users, at least not until the price hikes begin. Recently, OpenAI has implemented improvements in the ChatGPT 4o-mini model and has expanded the availability of the advanced voice mode of the chatbot to more users.