OpenAI

ChatGPT

Provider

OpenAI

Price

$0-200/mo

Platforms

Web, iOS, Android

Weekly users

900,000,000

Launched

Nov 2022

Updated July 2026

ChatGPT is OpenAI’s flagship AI assistant and the product that ignited the generative AI revolution. Launched on 30 November 2022, it reached 1 million users in just 5 days—the fastest-growing consumer application in history. As of October 2025, ChatGPT commands 800 million weekly active users and processes over 2.5 billion queries daily.

The platform’s flagship is now GPT-5.6 Sol (generally available since 9 July 2026 on Plus and above), with the fast GPT-5.5 Instant still the default model for Free and Go users, offering everything from casual conversation to advanced research, image generation, real-time voice chat, and agentic web browsing. Whether you’re a casual user on the free tier or a power user paying $200/month for Pro, this guide covers everything you need to know.

Quick stats

Pricing breakdown

ChatGPT offers six tiers in 2026 — Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise. All prices are in USD.

Free — $0

The free tier is genuinely useful, not just a demo. You get:

• GPT-5.5 Instant — The default model on the Free and Go tiers (auto-selected, no model picker); roughly 10 messages every 5 hours, then it falls back to GPT-5.5 Instant Mini
• GPT Store — Use others’ custom GPTs
• Web search and basic voice
• Limited file uploads and image generation
• Deep Research — A small monthly allowance

The catch (new in 2026): since February 2026, the US free tier shows ads — OpenAI’s first move into advertising. Free users also get the most restrictive limits and slower access at peak times.

Worth it for: Casual users, students, and anyone trying ChatGPT before paying.

Go — $8/month

A newer, cheaper paid tier introduced in 2026, sitting between Free and Plus:

• GPT-5.5 Instant as the default, with higher usage limits than Free
• More uploads, image generation and memory than Free
• Projects, Tasks and custom GPTs
• No ads

Worth it for: Light-to-moderate users who want more than Free without the jump to $20.

Plus — $20/month

The sweet spot for regular users, and the entry point to the current flagship. Everything in Go, plus:

• GPT-5.6 Sol — the current flagship — and Agent Mode for multi-step tasks
• Higher limits and Deep Research
• Image generation, Advanced Voice, and Sora video
• Codex — agentic coding
• Custom GPTs, Projects and Connectors (Gmail, Calendar, Drive, GitHub)

The price has held at $20/month since 2023.

Worth it for: Most regular and professional users who want the flagship model, agents and the full feature set.

Subscribe to Plus →

Pro — $200/month

For power users who need maximum capability. Everything in Plus, plus:

• Near-unlimited GPT-5.6 Sol, plus Sol at max “Pro” effort — the maximum-reasoning mode
• Highest limits and largest context
• Maximum Deep Research and Sora capacity
• ChatGPT Pulse — proactive daily briefings (Pro-exclusive)
• Priority compute — faster responses at peak times

Worth it for: Researchers, consultants and developers whose work depends heavily on AI for several hours a day.

Business — $25–30/user/month

Formerly called “Team” (renamed August 2025). Designed for organisations:

• Unlimited GPT-5 (fair use policy)
• GPT-5 Thinking Pro mode
• Admin dashboard — User management, usage analytics
• Data excluded from training — Your conversations are never used to train models
• SAML SSO — Enterprise authentication
• Shared workspaces — Collaborate on projects across team members
• Priority support

Minimum 2 users. Annual billing available at reduced rates.

Learn more about Business →

Enterprise — Custom pricing

For large organisations requiring maximum security and customisation. Estimated ~$60/user/month based on public reports:

• 2 million token context window — Handle massive documents
• Custom data retention policies
• SOC 2 Type 2 compliant
• Enterprise Key Management (EKM) — Customer-controlled encryption keys
• SCIM provisioning — Automated user management
• Data residency options — US, Europe, UK, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, India, UAE
• Dedicated support and onboarding

92% of Fortune 500 companies now use ChatGPT Enterprise.

Contact sales →

Models powering ChatGPT

OpenAI consolidated its separate “o-series” reasoning models into the unified GPT-5 line during 2025–2026, so you no longer pick between a chat model and a reasoning model — the model reasons when needed. Here’s what’s current.

GPT-5.6 Sol (July 2026)

The current flagship, generally available in ChatGPT since 9 July 2026 for Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise users (Free and Go stay on GPT-5.5 Instant). Sol is OpenAI’s strongest model — #2 on the independent Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index and #1 on its Coding Agent Index, and it tops OpenAI’s Terminal-Bench harness — with a new max reasoning effort and an ultra subagent mode. Two caveats: it trails Claude Opus 4.8 on repo-scale SWE-bench Pro (64.6% vs 69.2%), and METR flagged its reward-hacking (“cheating”) rate as the highest of any public model it has tested, so verify autonomous output. On the API, Sol ($5/$30) ships alongside cheaper Terra ($2.50/$15) and Luna ($1/$6) tiers.

GPT-5.6 Sol Pro (max effort)

Sol run at its highest max reasoning effort, for the hardest problems — the successor to the old GPT-5 Pro, available on the Pro and Enterprise tiers. It spends more compute for deeper, more reliable reasoning.

GPT-5.5 (April 2026) — prior flagship

The prior flagship, released 23 April 2026 and superseded by GPT-5.6 Sol on 9 July 2026 (still selectable on paid tiers). OpenAI framed it less as a smarter chatbot and more as an agent: built to take multi-step actions, hold task state across a session and chain tool calls. It posts about 82.6% on SWE-bench Verified (independently measured), with an ~1.05M-token context window via the API.

GPT-5.5 Instant (the free/Go base model)

GPT-5.5 Instant is the fast everyday default on the Free and Go tiers — the auto-selected, non-reasoning model that stayed in place when GPT-5.6 shipped. Free users get it with no model picker; after their allowance (~10 messages/5 hours) they fall back to GPT-5.5 Instant Mini. Paid tiers (Plus and above) default to the GPT-5.6 Sol flagship instead, with manual reasoning levels, Auto and higher limits.

GPT-5.4 and GPT-5.3

GPT-5.4 is strong on knowledge-work benchmarks, and GPT-5.3 (with a coding-focused GPT-5.3-Codex variant) remains available on the paid tiers. GPT-5.2 was retired from most tiers in June 2026.

Open-weight models

OpenAI also ships gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b under an Apache 2.0 licence — its open-weight models for self-hosting, separate from the ChatGPT app.

Features deep dive

Agent Mode

The defining feature of the GPT-5.5 era. Agent Mode lets ChatGPT carry out multi-step tasks on your behalf — browsing the web, filling forms, working across tools and holding task state across a session — rather than just answering. OpenAI explicitly frames GPT-5.5 as “an agent, not just a smarter chatbot,” and Agent Mode is available on Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise. It is OpenAI’s answer to Anthropic’s Cowork and the broader shift from chat to action.

Codex (agentic coding)

Codex is OpenAI’s agentic coding tool — it reads and writes local files, runs shell commands, connects to GitHub for pull requests and handles multi-step refactors, across the terminal, IDEs and the cloud. It is bundled into the paid ChatGPT tiers and became OpenAI’s fastest-growing product after its May 2026 expansion. For app users it brings Claude Code-style autonomy without leaving the OpenAI ecosystem.

Web browsing and ChatGPT Search

ChatGPT Search became available to all users (including logged-out visitors) on 5 February 2025. Built on a fine-tuned GPT-4o with Bing API integration and news partnerships (AP, Reuters, Financial Times), it provides:

• Inline citations with hover-to-preview functionality
• Rich visual results for weather, stocks, sports, maps
• Automatic triggering when queries benefit from current information
• Source transparency — See exactly where information comes from

The feature competes directly with Google and Perplexity, offering conversational search that synthesises information rather than just listing links.

Deep Research

Deep Research operates as an agentic feature that independently discovers, reasons about, and consolidates insights across the web. Unlike simple browsing, it:

• Autonomously navigates dozens of sources
• Cross-references and fact-checks information
• Produces comprehensive reports with citations
• Takes 5–30 minutes depending on complexity

Monthly limits: Pro gets 250 queries, Plus/Business/Enterprise get 25, Free gets 5.

A July 2025 update added visual browser capabilities—the agent can click, scroll, and navigate websites, pausing at login pages for user confirmation.

GPT-Live — full-duplex real-time voice

On 8 July 2026, GPT-Live replaced Advanced Voice Mode as ChatGPT’s voice experience. The difference is architectural: every previous ChatGPT voice system worked like a walkie-talkie — you talk, it talks, one side at a time. GPT-Live works like a phone call, with both sides live simultaneously. It can listen and speak at the same time, and decides — multiple times per second — whether to speak, keep listening, pause, interrupt or fire a tool call.

• Full-duplex conversation — Listens while it talks, so you can interject naturally and it responds without the old turn-based lag
• Backchanneling — Signals it’s paying attention with acknowledgements like “mhmm” mid-sentence, the way people do
• Search without stopping — Can run a web search while continuing to talk; previously, voice mode paused the conversation whenever it went to the internet
• Two models — GPT-Live-1 is the default voice model for paid users (Go, Plus, Pro); GPT-Live-1 mini serves the free tier

Availability: Rolling out globally from 8 July 2026 across iOS, Android and chatgpt.com. GPT-Live does not yet support voice with video or screen sharing — a regression from Advanced Voice Mode’s camera/screen features — which OpenAI says it’s working to add back soon.

Image generation

GPT-4o native image generation (internally called “GPT Image 1”) replaced DALL-E 3 as the default on 25 March 2025. This represents a fundamental shift—images are now generated as part of GPT-4o itself rather than calling a separate tool.

Key improvements over DALL-E 3:

• Dramatically better text rendering — Legible text in images, finally
• Precise specifications — Aspect ratios, hex colours, transparent backgrounds
• Selection tool — Highlight specific areas for targeted edits
• Coherent style — Better consistency across generated images

Generation takes up to one minute due to detail level. DALL-E 3 remains available as a legacy option through a dedicated GPT in the GPT Store.

Available to: Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise users.

Code execution (Advanced Data Analysis)

The code interpreter runs Python in a sandboxed environment with 300+ pre-installed libraries including pandas, numpy, matplotlib, scikit-learn, scipy, and more.

Capabilities:

• Data analysis and visualisation
• File format conversion
• Statistical analysis
• Chart and graph generation
• PDF manipulation
• Image processing

Limitations:

• 120-second runtime limit per execution
• No internet access from the sandbox
• State clears when the environment dies
• Some libraries unavailable for security reasons

File uploads and handling

ChatGPT supports extensive file upload capabilities:

Supported formats: PDF, DOCX, XLSX, CSV, TXT, PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, code files (Python, JavaScript, etc.)

Size limits:

• Documents: Up to 512MB per file
• Images: Up to 20MB
• Text content: Up to 2 million tokens (~500,000 words)

Upload limits:

• Plus users: 80 files every 3 hours
• Free users: 3 files daily

Storage caps:

• Individual: 10GB
• Organisation: 100GB

Memory and personalisation

ChatGPT’s memory system has two components:

1. Saved Memories — Explicitly requested or automatically captured details about you
2. Reference Chat History — Rolled out April 2025 for Plus/Pro, June 2025 for Free

This enables ChatGPT to remember your preferences, communication style, interests, and context across conversations. It’s a unique differentiator—neither Claude nor Gemini offers persistent memory.

Managing memory:

• View: Ask “What do you remember about me?”
• Control: Settings > Personalization > Manage Memories
• Delete: Remove individual memories or clear all
• Notifications: You’re informed when memories are added

Temporary Chat provides incognito mode—conversations aren’t saved to history, aren’t used for training, and don’t update memory. Data deleted within 30 days.

Custom GPTs and the GPT Store

Over 3 million Custom GPTs have been created through OpenAI’s no-code builder. To create one:

1. Describe the desired functionality in natural language
2. Upload knowledge files (up to 20)
3. Configure custom actions for API integration
4. Set conversation starters and personality

The GPT Store marketplace serves Plus, Business, and Enterprise users with featured and trending categories across productivity, writing, research, programming, education, and lifestyle.

Monetisation: A revenue-sharing program based on engagement metrics exists for US-based creators, though implementation details remain sparse. Most creators monetise through affiliate marketing, external paywalls, or consulting services.

Canvas for collaborative editing

Canvas provides a dedicated two-pane workspace for writing and coding projects. The feature auto-triggers when ChatGPT detects content exceeding 10 lines or editing scenarios.

Writing shortcuts:

• Adjust length (shorter/longer)
• Change reading level (from 5th grade to graduate)
• Add final polish
• Add emojis
• Translate

Coding shortcuts:

• Review code
• Add logging/comments
• Fix bugs
• Port to other languages (JavaScript, Python, Java, C++, PHP, TypeScript)
• Run code

Key capabilities:

• Inline highlighting for targeted edits
• Version history with “show changes” highlighting
• Export to PDF, Markdown, Word, or language-specific code files

Available on web, Windows, and macOS. Mobile support coming soon.

Projects for organised workspaces

Projects group related chats and files into dedicated workspaces with persistent context. Originally launched December 2024 for paid tiers, expanded to Free users in 2025 with limitations.

Each project supports:

• Custom instructions specific to that project
• Up to 20 file uploads (40 for Pro users)
• Memory that persists across all project chats
• Colour coding and organisation

Shared Projects (October 2025) allow multiple people to participate—members can start chats and view others’ sessions.

Connectors

Connectors provide direct integration with external tools:

• Google: Gmail, Calendar, Drive
• Microsoft: Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive
• Development: GitHub
• Storage: Dropbox, Box
• CRM: HubSpot

This allows ChatGPT to search your emails, check your calendar, find documents, and take actions—all through natural conversation.

Note: Connectors are unavailable in EEA, Switzerland, and UK due to regulatory constraints.

Pro users can build custom connectors via MCP (Model Context Protocol).

Tasks and scheduling

Tasks (launched January 2025) enable one-time or recurring prompts:

• Daily news briefings on topics you care about
• Stock price updates at market open
• Language learning exercises each morning
• Weather reports before your commute
• Weekly report summaries

You can maintain up to 10 active tasks, receiving push and email notifications upon completion.

Video generation with Sora

Sora is OpenAI’s text-to-video model, available inside ChatGPT on paid tiers (with the most capacity on Pro). The standalone Sora app was shut down in March 2026 over unsustainable compute cost (reportedly around $1M/day at peak), but Sora 2 continues with stronger physics, audio and control. Video generation remains usage-capped and carries the usual deepfake and likeness concerns.

Strengths

Market dominance — 800M weekly users and 79–81% market share means the largest ecosystem, most third-party integrations, and most community resources.

All-in-one platform — Text, images, voice, video, code, research, browsing—no competitor offers this breadth in a single interface.

Persistent memory — The only major AI assistant that remembers you across conversations. Neither Claude nor Gemini has this.

Voice mode quality — GPT-Live (July 2026) is the most natural voice AI available: full-duplex, so it listens while it talks, backchannels “mhmm,” and can search the web without pausing the conversation. It feels like a phone call rather than a walkie-talkie.

Ecosystem depth — 3M+ Custom GPTs, 1,000+ third-party integrations, extensive documentation, massive community.

Distribution and ecosystem — Over a billion monthly users, millions of custom GPTs, broad third-party integrations and the deepest community of any assistant.

Agentic breadth — Agent Mode, Codex and Operator push ChatGPT from answering questions to doing multi-step work, across text, image, video and voice.

Enterprise maturity — SOC 2, ISO certifications, data residency options and EKM encryption; the vast majority of Fortune 500 companies use ChatGPT Enterprise.

Limitations

Ads on the free tier — Since February 2026 the US free tier shows ads — a notable shift for a product people use for sensitive questions, and a reason privacy-minded users pay or look elsewhere.

Coding isn’t best-in-class — GPT-5.6 Sol leads agentic and terminal coding, but Claude Opus 4.8 still leads repo-scale SWE-bench Pro (69.2% vs Sol’s 64.6%) and Fable 5 leads outright (80%). METR also flagged Sol’s reward-hacking rate as the highest of any public model tested, so verify autonomous output.

Rate limits and cost — Even on Plus you can hit limits during heavy use, and Pro’s $200/month is steep for individuals.

Privacy and legal overhang — Training uses consumer data by default (opt-out), and a court ordered OpenAI to retain and produce millions of anonymised ChatGPT logs in the New York Times copyright case.

Ecosystem lock-in — The breadth that makes ChatGPT convenient also concentrates your data and workflows in one vendor.

Connector restrictions — EEA/UK users can’t access many integration features due to regulation.

Video generation limits — Sora access is Pro-only and still constrained by usage caps.

Who should use ChatGPT?

Great for:

• General AI users — If you want one AI assistant for everything, ChatGPT’s breadth is unmatched
• Visual creators — GPT-4o image generation produces excellent results with readable text
• Voice-first users — GPT-Live’s full-duplex voice is the most natural in the industry
• Builders — Custom GPTs let you create specialised tools without coding
• Researchers — Deep Research and web browsing provide powerful information synthesis
• Enterprise teams — Mature security, compliance, and admin features

Look elsewhere if:

• Maximum context is essential — Gemini offers 1M+ tokens vs ChatGPT’s 128K–256K
• Deep coding is your primary use — Claude or Cursor may serve you better
• Privacy is paramount — Claude’s approach may suit you better (no training on conversations by default)
• Google ecosystem integration — Gemini’s native Workspace integration is seamless
• Budget is extremely tight — Free tier is good, but Claude and Gemini free tiers may suit specific needs better

Historical timeline

Privacy and data handling

Understanding how OpenAI handles your data is crucial. Here’s the breakdown:

Training data policy

To opt out: Settings > Data Controls > “Improve the model for everyone” → Off

Temporary Chat

Temporary Chat provides incognito mode:

• Conversations aren’t saved to your history
• Not used for model training
• Don’t update your memory
• Retained for 30 days for safety monitoring only, then deleted

Data retention

• Regular chats: Retained until you delete them
• Deleted content: Removed from systems within 30 days
• Temporary chats: 30 days maximum, safety monitoring only

Security certifications

Enterprise and Business products hold:

• SOC 2 Type 2 — Security, availability, processing integrity
• ISO 27001 — Information security management
• ISO 27017 — Cloud security
• ISO 27018 — Protection of personal data in cloud
• ISO 27701 — Privacy information management

Visit OpenAI’s Trust Portal for audit reports and compliance documentation.

Data residency

Enterprise customers can choose data residency in: US, Europe, UK, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, India, UAE.

Enterprise Key Management (EKM)

Enterprise tier supports customer-controlled encryption keys—your data is encrypted with keys you control, providing an additional security layer.

ChatGPT vs alternatives

Quick comparison

Where ChatGPT wins

• Reach and ecosystem — A billion-plus users, custom GPTs and the broadest integrations
• All-in-one breadth — Text, image, video, voice, agents and research in one place
• Voice quality — Among the most natural, responsive voice modes
• Agentic momentum — Agent Mode and the fast-growing Codex

Where competitors win

• Claude — Leads the hardest coding benchmarks, stronger long-form writing, no ads, stronger safety posture
• Gemini — Deep Google Workspace integration, generous free tier, strong multimodal and video (Veo)

Getting started

Web

1. Go to chatgpt.com
2. Sign up with email, Google, Microsoft, or Apple
3. Start chatting—no setup required

Mobile

• iOS: Download from App Store
• Android: Download from Google Play

Desktop

Download from openai.com/chatgpt/download:

• macOS: Requires Apple Silicon, macOS 14+
• Windows: Windows 10 or 11

Tips for new users

Be specific: “Write a professional email declining a meeting due to a schedule conflict” beats “write an email.”

Use follow-ups: ChatGPT maintains context. Ask for revisions, clarifications, or different approaches.

Try voice mode: Tap the headphone icon for hands-free conversation. Great for brainstorming or when you can’t type.

Explore the GPT Store: Thousands of specialised GPTs for writing, coding, research, image generation, and more.

Set up memory: Tell ChatGPT about yourself—job, preferences, communication style—and it’ll remember across conversations.

Frequently asked questions

Is ChatGPT free?

Yes. The free tier runs GPT-5.5 Instant by default (roughly 10 messages per 5 hours, then GPT-5.5 Instant Mini), plus use of GPT Store bots, web search, basic voice and a small Deep Research allowance. Since February 2026, the US free tier also shows ads.

What is the current ChatGPT model?

GPT-5.6 Sol, generally available since 9 July 2026, is the current flagship on Plus and above. OpenAI frames it as an agent built for multi-step actions, and it leads terminal and agentic coding (with a METR-flagged reward-hacking caveat, so verify autonomous output). The Pro tier adds Sol at max “Pro” effort, while the Free and Go tiers run the fast GPT-5.5 Instant variant.

Is ChatGPT Plus worth $20/month?

For most regular users, yes. Plus unlocks the GPT-5.6 Sol flagship, Agent Mode, Deep Research, image and Sora video generation, Codex and custom GPTs. If you only need a bit more than Free, the new Go tier ($8/month) is a cheaper, ad-free step up.

What about the $200 Pro tier?

For power users who want near-unlimited GPT-5.6 Sol (including its max “Pro” effort), the highest limits, maximum Sora and Deep Research capacity, and the Pro-exclusive ChatGPT Pulse. Most people are well served by Plus.

What is Agent Mode?

Agent Mode lets ChatGPT carry out multi-step tasks for you — browsing, filling forms, using tools and holding task state across a session — rather than only answering. It is available on Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise, and is OpenAI’s answer to agentic rivals like Anthropic’s Cowork.

Is my data private?

Free, Go and Plus conversations may be used for training by default — you can opt out in Settings → Data Controls — and the US free tier now shows ads. Business and Enterprise conversations are never used for training. Note that a court order in the New York Times copyright case has required OpenAI to retain and produce millions of anonymised ChatGPT logs.

Can ChatGPT generate images and video?

Yes, on paid tiers. ChatGPT generates high-quality images with readable text, and Sora produces video (with the most capacity on Pro). The standalone Sora app was shut down in March 2026, but Sora 2 continues inside ChatGPT.

What is GPT-Live?

GPT-Live is ChatGPT’s voice experience, launched on 8 July 2026 to replace Advanced Voice Mode. It’s full-duplex — it listens and speaks at the same time, like a phone call rather than a walkie-talkie — so it can be interrupted naturally, backchannel with “mhmm,” and even search the web without pausing the conversation. GPT-Live-1 is the default for paid users; GPT-Live-1 mini serves the free tier. It doesn’t yet support voice with video or screen sharing, which OpenAI says is coming.

Does ChatGPT remember previous conversations?

Yes. Memory stores details about you across conversations, which you can view, edit and delete in settings. Use Temporary Chat for sessions that aren’t remembered.

Verdict

ChatGPT is the most-used AI product in the world — over a billion monthly users — and in 2026 it is pivoting from chatbot to agent. GPT-5.6 Sol, Agent Mode and the fast-growing Codex push it toward doing multi-step work, on top of the broadest feature set in the category: image, Sora video, voice, custom GPTs, Deep Research and Pulse. No rival matches its reach or breadth.

Free ($0): The best-known free assistant, now with ads in the US and GPT-5.5 Instant as the default model — fine for casual use.

Go ($8) / Plus ($20): Go is a cheap, ad-free step up (still on GPT-5.5 Instant); Plus is the sweet spot for most people, adding the GPT-5.6 Sol flagship, Agent Mode and the full feature set.

Pro ($200/month): For heavy professional users who want near-unlimited GPT-5.6 Sol (including its max “Pro” effort) and Pulse.

ChatGPT isn’t best at everything — Claude leads the hardest coding benchmarks and long-form writing, and has no ads, while Gemini integrates deeply with Google — but it is very good at almost everything and remains the default for most people. See ChatGPT vs Claude for the head-to-head.

Official links