ChatGPT might get cheaper ‘Pro Lite’ tier
If ChatGPT’s $20 per month Plus plan restricts your style but the $200 per month Pro plan seems overkill, there’s growing evidence of a cheaper ChatGPT Pro tier that would split the difference.
An AI developer digging through ChatGPT’s web app code recently found a “payment page” string that references a “ChatGPT Pro Lite” plan, priced at $100 per month. The payment channel has not yet been activated.
The plan description on a later checkout page simply details the existing ChatGPT Pro plan, but is “probably still a work in progress,” developer Tibor Blaho noted on X.
While checking the ChatGPT web app code myself on Monday, I also found several references to “PROLITE” and “chatgptprolite” on ChatGPT’s plan pricing page.
Blaho, lead engineer of the AIPRM prompt management tool, had previously found hidden code suggesting that ads were coming to ChatGPT, which turned out to be true.
I reached out to OpenAI, ChatGPT’s parent, for comment.
OpenAI currently offers four personal ChatGPT tiers, including a $20 per month Plus plan and the much more expensive ChatGPT Pro for $200 per month. There’s also the recently launched $8 per month Go plan and a free tier, both of which can serve ads with ChatGPT responses.
ChatGPT Plus generally gives regular users enough scope for daily tasks and chats, including image and video generation, memory of past conversations, and the ability to create custom GPTs.
But more ambitious users and mood coders using the Codex could quickly find themselves faced with the limitations of using ChatGPT. For them, the only option is a massive jump to the much more expensive ChatGPT Pro tier.
A $100 ChatGPT Lite would provide a happy medium between the $20 per month ChatGPT Plus plan and the $200/month ChatGPT Pro tier.
Gemini users are in the same boat with Google’s AI plans, with a wide gap between Google AI Pro for $20 per month and Google AI Ultra for $250 per month. Google also offers a paired AI Plus plan for $8/month and a free tier, similar to ChatGPT’s cheaper options.
In contrast, Anthropic’s Claude offers a happy medium for its more expensive plans, with Claude Max offering a Max 5x tier (with about five times the limits of the Claude Pro plan at $20 per month) for $100 per month, while a Max x20 plan costs $200 per month.
