Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Tired of monthly payments? ChatGPT could soon offer a lifetime subscription

Add as a preferred source on Google
ChatGPT giving a response about its knowledge cutoff.
ChatGPT Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

ChatGPT usage is more prevalent than ever, and its current model offers a monthly subscription of $20 for ChatGPT Plus or the mind-boggling steep $200 per month for ChatGPT Pro. Beyond that, there are no other options, but an APK teardown suggests the service might soon offer both annual and lifetime subscription plans.

@M1Astra, a user on X, found code strings in the latest build that point to multiple new subscription tiers. There’s no clear price on these, but the second-to-last string suggests a discount will be offered for annual subscribers. There’s also a line for a possible weekly subscription that would allow users to use more advanced features as needed, rather than paying one month at a time.

Recommended Videos

The only way to subscribe annually is through the Team or Enterprise plans, both of which are geared more towards business or commercial use rather than the average user. For anyone who uses ChatGPT daily, an annual subscription would be a convenient way to save money (and make budgeting a bit easier), but what it might cost is anyone’s guess. If prices remain the same, a yearly subscription could cost $240 without a discount, but perhaps ChatGPT would price it at $200 — slightly over 15% off.

OpenAI is considering Lifetime and Weekly subscriptions for ChatGPT – found in latest ChatGPT build! pic.twitter.com/LpAN1vgWin

— M1 (@M1Astra) May 8, 2025

The lifetime subscription is much harder to estimate and will likely carry an exorbitant price tag. The team will have to account for future growth and development, new features that might be added, and numerous other factors. The service has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years, so it’s easy to imagine what it might be capable of in the years to come.

In many cases, a “lifetime” subscription to something is calculated at roughly ten years. ChatGPT could charge anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000 for a subscription to the Plus plan, but if you want a lifetime subscription to the $200 per month Pro tier? That’s anywhere between $20,000 and $30,000 by those same calculations.

Of course, this is all speculation. ChatGPT hasn’t officially announced additional subscription options yet, so it remains to be seen what they will actually be priced at. However, regardless of what the annual plan costs, the lifetime plan is likely to be absurdly expensive.

Patrick Hearn
Former Technology Writer
Patrick has written about tech for more than 15 years and isn't slowing down anytime soon. With previous clients ranging from…
Google’s new Magic Pointer Play Store listing reveals a Gemini shortcut built for Googlebooks
The unannounced app turns the cursor into a contextual AI tool for search, image creation, and shopping
Plant, Text, Business Card

Google has quietly published a new Play Store listing for Magic Pointer, an unannounced app built for Googlebooks. Updated on July 10, the app turns the cursor into a Gemini shortcut that can act on whatever a user selects on screen.

Magic Pointer can send an image to Lens, generate a related image, or surface a shopping action without forcing users to open a separate chatbot. Regular Android devices currently show as incompatible, so the listing offers an early preview rather than a broad release.

Read more
You can stop using AI, but this new report says you probably can’t escape it
A UK survey found that most people feel AI exposure is unavoidable, raising harder questions about consent, privacy, and whether opting out is still realistic
AI Chatbots

More people are trying to use less AI, but avoiding it altogether may already be impossible.

A survey of 2,055 UK adults found that 42% deliberately limit how much AI they use. Another 70% said avoiding AI exposure would be difficult or impossible, even when they actively wanted less of it.

Read more
The face on an AI interviewer may matter as much as the decision it makes
Researchers found that race and gender matching changed how fairly rejected applicants viewed an automated interview, even though everyone received the same outcome
File, Computer Hardware, Electronics

An AI hiring system can treat every applicant the same and still leave some people feeling targeted. Researchers found that rejected candidates judged an automated interview differently depending on the race and gender of the avatar delivering the result.

Around 220 participants completed a simulated interview for a fictional customer support role with one of four photorealistic AI avatars. Everyone was rejected, yet perceptions of fairness shifted with the interviewer’s appearance. An algorithm audit could miss that reaction because candidates don’t experience the system as raw code. They experience a face asking questions and judging their answers.

Read more