Hajra Naz
OpenAI has officially launched ChatGPT Go, a new budget-friendly subscription plan for Indian users, priced at just ₹399 per month ($4.60). This is a significant drop from the existing ChatGPT Plus plan, which costs ₹1,999 per month (around $23). With this launch, OpenAI is making generative AI tools more accessible to India’s massive digital user base.
The rollout also includes support for local currency billing and UPI (Unified Payments Interface), India’s most widely used payment system. This ensures that users can easily subscribe without relying on international credit cards—a major barrier for many Indian consumers.
According to Nick Turley, VP at OpenAI and head of ChatGPT, the new Go plan offers users 10x higher message limits, 10x more image generations, 10x more file uploads, and double the memory retention compared to the free tier. This upgrade enables more personalized conversations, advanced image generation, and better AI-powered file processing at a fraction of the cost.
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Nick Turley wrote on X (formerly Twitter):
This move highlights India’s growing importance to OpenAI. The country has become its second-largest market, with CEO Sam Altman noting the rapid adoption of AI tools. Analytics firm AppFigures reports that India led ChatGPT downloads globally in the past 90 days, contributing over 29 million installs, though app revenue during this period was only $3.6 million.
The Go plan directly addresses this gap, offering an affordable AI subscription for students, creators, and professionals. It also undercuts the ChatGPT Plus plan, which, in local pricing, turned out to be more expensive than the $20 global rate.
Industry watchers say this strategy could drive massive adoption. India’s internet user base exceeds 850 million, and demand for affordable AI productivity tools, AI chatbots, and AI writing assistants is skyrocketing. Competitors are also racing to capture this audience—Perplexity AI recently partnered with Airtel to give away free Pro subscriptions, while Google offered Indian students a year of its AI Pro tools at no cost.
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Unlike rivals, OpenAI isn’t offering freebies but is banking on pricing accessibility and feature-rich upgrades to boost subscriptions. Early signs suggest that this could significantly improve conversion rates from free users to paid plans.
The launch of ChatGPT Go also follows a wave of updates, including enhanced AI image generation, improved file analysis, and expanded memory features, which are seeing strong traction in India.
While currently geo-restricted to India, OpenAI confirmed it plans to expand Go to other regions soon. If successful, this model could reshape how AI adoption scales in emerging markets worldwide.
