I’ve wanted to get on ChatGPT Plus for months but kept postponing the upgrade until DevDay came along. OpenAI’s big developer event brought custom GPTs, among other things, and I knew I wanted to try them out. However, making and using custom GPTs was restricted to the ChatGPT Plus subscription. And I knew I had to get on. I didn’t subscribe the moment right after DevDay had concluded, as I figured I had time to do it. There wouldn’t be that many custom GPTs to try out anyway.
Little did I know that destiny was also working behind the scenes. You see, it turns out that other free ChatGPT users like me were convinced to get on the Plus subscription after the DevDay event. So much so that OpenAI sold out of available ChatGPT Plus capacity in mid-November. Rather than subscribing, I got a place on a waitlist, and I had no way to know how long it’d last.
Almost a month later, ChatGPT Plus had opened back up, with registrations now open to those on the waitlist. Unlike when I failed to press that buy button, I didn’t waste time and subscribed. You probably can do it, too.
OpenAI stopped selling ChatGPT Plus subscriptions a few weeks ahead of Black Friday. Also, it happened right before the Sam Altman firing/rehiring drama. I said at the time that OpenAI missed a huge Black Friday and Cyber Mondy opportunity, assuming it had any plans to offer cheaper ChatGPT Plus deals.
Considering the massive interest in ChatGPT Plus, I highly doubt that big discounts were planned. Also, now that the ChatGPT Plus subscription is back, you shouldn’t expect any price cuts. Or price hikes, for that matter. ChatGPT Plus still costs $20 per month. Like before, there’s no cheaper deal for 12 or 24 months of access, like some subscription services will offer you.
What you get out of ChatGPT Plus is access to two models, GPT-3.5 and GPT-4. The latter is the most advanced language model OpenAI has developed so far. You can access it for free by using Microsoft’s Copilot instead of ChatGPT.
GPT-4 also comes with Dall-E support and internet browsing. The addition of the latter to ChatGPT Plus was my first big reason to subscribe to the premium version. You only get 40 messages every three hours for GPT-4, however. ChatGPT Plus also gives you access to plugins, which you have to enable from the slightly different settings menu.
More importantly, ChatGPT Plus gives me access to using custom GPTs. There’s a new Explore button at the top of the app which opens the doors to the custom GPT not-a-store-yet marketplace. OpenAI will open a store for custom GPTs early next year.
Finally, ChatGPT Plus gives anyone the ability to create a custom GPT of their own and train a bot to do specific tasks. You can create a builder profile from the same updated settings menu.
All that is to say that ChatGPT Plus is slightly different than it was before DevDay. Custom GPTs are the main attraction, which I plan to explore in the coming days.
If you want to get on ChatGPT Plus, check the app to see whether you can purchase a subscription. You’ll have a notification waiting if you’ve signed up for a waitlist. If you want to use custom GPTs, or create some, you might not want to wait. There’s no telling whether Plus access will sell out again or how fast it’ll happen.
