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ChatGPT Plus is worth $20 a month only if you need the stronger GPT-6 models, deep research or Codex. Free already runs GPT-6 Luna with unlimited text chat, so you are no longer paying for more messages. If you only want more images and uploads, the $8 Go plan does that.
Pay for Plus if you would use GPT-6 Sol or Astra, deep research or Codex most weeks, or you want the ads gone.
Pay for Go instead if the free plan's answers are fine and you only run out of images, uploads or data analysis.
Pay nothing if you mostly type questions and read answers, because text chat has no message cap on the free plan.
prices checked 2026-10-13 · by dan scutaru
| plan | price | what matters |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Unlimited text chats on GPT-6 Luna. Limited images, uploads, deep research, Codex. May show ads. |
| Go | $8/month | More images, uploads and data analysis. Same GPT-6 Luna as Free. May show ads. |
| Plus | $20/month | GPT-6 Sol and Astra, full deep research and Codex. No ads. Monthly only. |
| Pro | $100, $200 or $500/month | Pro reasoning, no five-hour Codex limit for now. Monthly only. |
Plus adds models, not messages. OpenAI lists everyday text chats as unlimited on every plan, Free included, so the old reason to pay, running out of messages, is gone. Free and Go now get GPT-6 Luna. What they lack is the rest of the family: GPT-6 Sol, GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol are ticked for Plus and Pro only on OpenAI's comparison table.
Plus also adds image generation with Thinking, Sites and record mode.
Go is the free plan with bigger allowances. Plus is a different set of models. For $8, Go raises the limits on images, uploads and data analysis, adds scheduled tasks, and has the same context window as Plus.
What Go keeps from Free matters more. It runs the same GPT-6 Luna and GPT-5 Thinking Mini as Free, deep research and Codex stay limited, and the plan may show ads. If you came for more images and longer chats, Go is enough. If you came for better answers, it is not.
Plus has limits, and OpenAI prints almost none of them. Its help page says Plus "may include usage limits such as message caps, especially during high demand", with no count for chat, images or deep research. The 160 messages every three hours that review sites repeat is not on OpenAI's Plus or pricing pages today.
The only numbers are for Codex and ChatGPT Work, which share one allowance: an estimated 15 to 160 messages per five hours on GPT-6.1 Sol, 5 to 45 on GPT-6 Astra, and a weekly limit may apply. Past that you buy credits.
$20 a month in the US, billed monthly. There is no annual plan and no way to prepay several months, so nothing is lost by cancelling.
OpenAI's Plus help page lists none. The one documented offer is for students. Otherwise the cheapest test is one month for $20, cancelled the same day so it does not renew.
For four months, if you study in the US. Verified college and graduate students get four free monthly periods if they claim by October 31, 2026. It needs a payment method, renews at $20, and does not apply to App Store or Google Play subscriptions.
No. OpenAI says Plus and Pro accounts will not have ads. Ads may appear on Free and on the $8 Go plan, below the answer and labelled as sponsored. Testing began in the US in February 2026.