Comparison
ChatGPT Plans: Free vs Plus vs Pro vs Business
How ChatGPT's Free, Go, Plus, Pro and Business plans compare on price, message limits, model access and features — and which tier is right for you.
Quick answer: ChatGPT has six tiers, but the decision comes down to four, and what separates them changed in August 2026: every consumer tier, Free included, now gets unlimited everyday text chats within OpenAI’s abuse guardrails, so the plans differ by model, tool limits and ads rather than message caps. Free ($0) runs GPT-6 Luna and shows ads. Plus ($20/month) is the right plan for most people: it removes ads and unlocks GPT-6 Astra, Agent Mode, Sora video and the full Deep Research allowance. Pro ($100, $200 or $500/month) adds 5×, 10× or 25× Plus usage, Pro reasoning powered by GPT-6 Astra and an always-on agent called a dot; the $500 plan, added on 29 September 2026, also gets Astra Ultrafast. Business ($25–30/user/month) is Plus for teams, adding an admin console, single sign-on and — critically — excluding your data from model training by default. Upgrade to Pro for volume; move to Business for control and privacy.
At a glance
| Plan | Price (USD) | Models in chat | Everyday text chats | Other limits | Ads | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | GPT-6 Luna, with a Think button | Unlimited* | Uploads, images, voice and deep research limited | Yes | Trying ChatGPT |
| Go | $8/mo | GPT-6 Luna, with a Think button | Unlimited* | More than Free | Yes | More uploads and images, cheaply |
| Plus | $20/mo | GPT-6 Astra and GPT-5.6 | Unlimited* | Expanded | No | Most people |
| Pro | $100, $200 or $500/mo | GPT-6 Astra with Pro reasoning; GPT-5.6 Sol Pro | Unlimited* | 5×, 10× or 25× Plus | No | Power users |
| Business | $25–30/user/mo | GPT-6 Astra and GPT-5.6 | Effectively unlimited | Team-wide | No | Teams |
| Enterprise | Custom (~$60/user) | GPT-6 Astra and GPT-5.6 | Effectively unlimited | Team-wide | No | Large organisations |
Prices are OpenAI’s US rates; models and limits are from OpenAI’s pricing page and release notes. *Unlimited everyday text chats are subject to OpenAI’s abuse guardrails.
What each plan costs
ChatGPT’s ladder runs from $0 to a custom Enterprise rate, with five paid rungs in between.
Free costs nothing and needs no card. Go is $8 a month — a budget paid tier that raises Free’s limits without unlocking the flagship tools. Plus is $20 a month, the mainstream paid plan. Pro comes in three price points (The Next Web): $100 a month, launched 9 April 2026, with 5× Plus usage; $200 a month, reopened to new subscribers on 29 September 2026 with 10× Plus usage in ChatGPT Work and Codex and 100 GPT-6 Pro messages a week; and $500 a month, added the same day, with 25× Plus usage and Astra Ultrafast, up to 300 tokens a second in Codex. People already on the $200 plan keep 20× and 200 messages a week until 29 October and get a one-time $2,500 usage credit that expires at the end of the year. Every Pro plan includes one dot, an always-on agent, outside the EEA, Switzerland and the UK. Business is $25 per user per month billed annually, or $30 per user per month billed monthly, with a two-seat minimum (OpenAI); since August 2026 a workspace can also buy Premium seats at $125 per user per month, or $100 billed annually, with five times a standard seat’s usage and one dot. Enterprise is custom-quoted, commonly around $60 per user per month at scale.
Two billing details matter. Business is cheapest paid annually rather than monthly, so a five-person team pays roughly $125 a month on the annual plan versus $150 monthly. And the $100 Pro tier, not the $200 one, is the realistic upgrade from Plus for most heavy users — the jump to $200 is about raw volume and unlimited Sora, not extra intelligence.
Which model you get on each plan
This is where the plans differ most, and it changed twice in 2026.
Free and Go run GPT-6 Luna as their default model since 8 October 2026 (OpenAI), with a Think button for harder questions (OpenAI). Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise run GPT-6 Sol in regular chat since 7 October 2026 and get GPT-6 Astra, OpenAI’s flagship on every paid tier since 5 September 2026, alongside the GPT-5.6 reasoning models, including GPT-5.6 Sol, the flagship from July until then (OpenAI).
Free and Go do not get GPT-6 Astra or GPT-5.6 Sol in chat. (In OpenAI’s separate Codex and Work surfaces on desktop, they get limited access to the mid-tier GPT-5.6 Terra.) Go’s step up from Free is more messages with tools, more uploads, images and voice, and longer memory, not a better model. Pro adds Pro reasoning powered by GPT-6 Astra, a slower, higher-effort mode for the hardest problems, and keeps GPT-5.6 Sol Pro available. Business and Enterprise run the same Astra reasoning as Plus, with team-wide limits.
In short: pay $20 or more and you get the current flagship reasoning model in chat; stay on Free or Go and you do not.
Message and usage limits
Everyday chatting is no longer what the tiers meter. Since mid-August 2026 all four consumer tiers have unlimited text chats within abuse guardrails, so the limits that separate them now sit on tools.
Free limits messages with uploads, image generation, voice chats, deep research, memory and context, Codex and desktop Work access. Go raises each of those, Plus expands them further, and Pro gives 5× Plus usage from its $100 tier (OpenAI). OpenAI does not publish fixed numbers for these allowances, so compare tiers on its pricing page rather than on third-party message counts, most of which predate the August change. Business and Enterprise are effectively unlimited on everyday use.
Deep Research is metered separately by tier: Free includes a lightweight version at a low monthly cap (around five runs), Plus includes the full feature at a standard allowance, and Pro $200 raises it to about 250 runs a month (The Decoder; ToolColumn). Context windows scale with tier as well; independent guides report up to roughly 1M tokens on Pro $200 and around 2M on Enterprise, though OpenAI does not publish an official per-tier figure, so treat those as reported rather than confirmed.
Features by plan
| Feature | Free | Go | Plus | Pro | Business |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web search | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Image generation | Limited | More | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sora video | No | No | Yes | Yes ($200: unlimited) | Yes |
| Deep Research | Limited (~5/mo) | Limited | Yes | Yes (~250/mo on $200) | Yes |
| Agent Mode | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Codex (agentic coding) | Limited | Limited | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Projects & Tasks | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Connectors | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes (60+, admin-managed) |
| Custom GPTs | Use | Use | Use and build | Use and build | Use and build |
| Ads | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Data used to train models by default | Yes (opt-out) | Yes (opt-out) | Yes (opt-out) | Yes (opt-out) | No |
| Admin console and SSO | No | No | No | No | Yes |
The pattern is clear: the pro-grade creative and agentic tools — unlimited image generation, Sora video, the full Deep Research allowance and Agent Mode — are what Plus unlocks over Free and Go. Codex, OpenAI’s agentic coding tool, is now available across tiers through the desktop app, but paid plans get far higher limits and GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI). The admin console, single sign-on and default training exclusion are exclusive to Business and Enterprise. Custom GPTs are scheduled to be retired on 11 December 2026 and replaced by plugins (Virtualization Review).
Free vs Plus: when it’s worth paying
Pay for Plus once the free tool limits or the ads get in your way. Free is genuinely useful now that text chats are unlimited, but uploads, images, voice and deep research stay tightly limited, and the free tier shows labelled sponsored results. Plus removes the ads, expands those allowances and — the real unlock — gives you GPT-6 Astra, Agent Mode, Sora video and the full Deep Research allowance, a clear step up from Free. If you use ChatGPT most days, or for anything beyond quick lookups, Plus is the clearest-value upgrade in the entire range.
Plus vs Pro: when to upgrade
Most people should stay on Plus; upgrade to Pro only when you hit its limits. Plus and Pro share the same flagship, GPT-6 Astra; Pro’s one capability addition is Pro reasoning powered by GPT-6 Astra, a slower, higher-effort mode for the hardest problems, with GPT-5.6 Sol Pro still available (OpenAI). Otherwise Pro is about volume: the $100 tier buys 5× the usage of Plus, the $200 tier 10× and the $500 tier 25×. The $200 tier has also carried unlimited Sora video and about 250 Deep Research runs a month (ToolColumn), and the $500 tier alone gets Astra Ultrafast.
That makes the upgrade mostly a volume decision. Developers running Codex all day, researchers batching Deep Research reports, and heavy Sora users are the people who justify Pro. If you are not regularly hitting Plus’s message or Deep Research caps, the extra $80–$480 a month buys headroom you will not use. Start on Plus, watch for the rate-limit warning, and upgrade to the $100 tier first; the $200 and $500 tiers are for people who live inside ChatGPT or Codex.
Business vs Plus: when your team needs it
Choose Business over individual Plus seats when you need admin control, single sign-on or data privacy. For an individual, Business at $25–30 a month offers little that Plus does not. For a team, three things change. First, your data is excluded from model training by default on Business and Enterprise, whereas consumer tiers use conversations for training unless each user opts out — the decisive factor for anyone handling client or company information (OpenAI). Second, Business adds a shared workspace, an admin console with SAML single sign-on, and SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 compliance (eesel AI). Third, it includes admin-managed connectors to tools such as Slack, Google Drive, SharePoint and GitHub.
The rule of thumb: one or two people can run on Plus, but the moment you have a team, shared billing, or sensitive data, Business is the correct plan. Enterprise extends the same foundation with a larger context window, SCIM provisioning and encryption-key management for organisations that need them. For a fuller team-tool comparison, see best AI for business.
Which ChatGPT plan should you choose?
- Best for most people: Plus ($20/month). Ad-free, the current flagship reasoning model, and every major feature, at the lowest price that unlocks them.
- Best value: Go ($8/month) if you only need higher limits than Free and do not care about GPT-6 Astra, Sora or full Deep Research.
- Best free option: Free ($0), now with unlimited text chats on GPT-6 Luna — accept the tool limits and the ads.
- Best for power users: Pro ($100/month) for 5× Plus usage and Pro reasoning on GPT-6 Astra; the $200 (10×) and $500 (25×, with Astra Ultrafast) tiers are for heavier use.
- Best for teams: Business ($25–30/user/month) for admin controls, single sign-on and data excluded from training by default.
- Best for large organisations: Enterprise (custom) for SCIM, key management and the largest context window.
- When to skip ChatGPT: if your work is mostly long-form writing or code and you want an ad-free free tier, compare Claude in ChatGPT vs Claude.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ChatGPT Plus and Pro?
ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) and Pro ($100, $200 or $500/month) share the same flagship, GPT-6 Astra. Pro adds Pro reasoning powered by GPT-6 Astra for the hardest problems, an always-on dot, and 5×, 10× or 25× Plus’s usage depending on the tier. Choose Pro only if you regularly hit Plus’s tool or Deep Research limits.
Is ChatGPT Pro worth it?
For most people, no. Pro is worth it only if you consistently hit Plus’s limits — for example, developers running Codex all day, researchers batching Deep Research, or heavy Sora video users. If you are not hitting Plus’s tool or Deep Research limits, the extra $80 to $480 a month buys headroom you will not use. Start with the $100 tier; the $200 and $500 tiers only pay off for very heavy use.
What is the difference between ChatGPT Business and Plus?
ChatGPT Business ($25–30/user/month) is Plus for teams. It adds a shared workspace, an admin console with single sign-on, SOC 2 Type 2 compliance and admin-managed connectors, and — most importantly — it excludes your data from model training by default, which consumer Plus does not. For an individual there is little reason to pick Business; for a team or anyone handling sensitive data, Business is the correct plan.
Which ChatGPT plan gives you GPT-5.6?
Every plan gets part of the GPT-6 family. Free and Go run GPT-6 Luna as their default model, since 8 October 2026. Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise run GPT-6 Sol in regular chat, since 7 October 2026, and get GPT-6 Astra, the flagship on every paid tier since 5 September 2026, with the GPT-5.6 reasoning models, including GPT-5.6 Sol, still available.
How many messages do you get on ChatGPT Plus?
Everyday text chats are unlimited on Plus, subject to OpenAI’s abuse guardrails, and have been on Free and Go too since mid-August 2026. The limits that remain cover messages with uploads, image generation, voice, deep research and other tools; they are expanded on Plus, and Pro gives 5× Plus usage. OpenAI does not publish fixed figures, so check its pricing page.
Does ChatGPT Free show ads?
Yes. Since February 2026 ChatGPT’s Free and Go tiers have shown labelled sponsored results, starting in the United States and expanding to more markets since. The paid Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise tiers are ad-free. This is a key reason many daily users move from Free to Plus.
Is ChatGPT Go worth it?
ChatGPT Go ($8/month) is worth it only if you want higher limits than Free but do not need the flagship tools. Go raises message, upload and image allowances and adds Projects and Tasks, but it still shows ads, keeps you on GPT-6 Luna, and does not unlock GPT-6 Astra, Agent Mode, Sora or the full Deep Research allowance. For $12 more, Plus unlocks all of those — for most people it is the better buy.
What is the cheapest paid ChatGPT plan?
ChatGPT Go at $8 a month is the cheapest paid tier, followed by Plus at $20 a month. Go is the cheapest way to escape Free’s tightest limits, but Plus is the cheapest plan that unlocks GPT-6 Astra and the full feature set. Business starts at $25 per user per month on annual billing — slightly above Plus, and only worth it once you need team controls and default training exclusion.