You can use ChatGPT for free: all you need is an account. For most people who write emails, ask for a text to be explained or look for ideas a few times a week, the free version is enough. The paid version is priced in euros in Lithuania: Go €8, Plus €23, Pro from €103 per month (ChatGPT pricing page opened from Lithuania); you will confirm the final amount at checkout. The API is a separate, usage-based service for developers, and no ChatGPT subscription includes it.
Prices and plan terms were checked on the official OpenAI pages on October 23, 2026. They change, so check the ChatGPT pricing page before paying.
Should I pay for ChatGPT? Three questions
Before looking at prices, answer three questions for yourself:
- Do you use ChatGPT at least a few times a week? If you are only trying it out, it is too early to pay: first find out what it is useful for.
- Do you often hit the limit? If ChatGPT keeps telling you to wait, or that you have run out of files or images, a paid plan will solve that problem.
- Do you need a feature that is not available for free? For example, more advanced reasoning models, analysis of long documents or scheduled tasks. If not, the free version is enough.
If you answered "no" to all three, you can skip the rest about paid plans: free ChatGPT is enough. How to get started with it is explained separately (What is ChatGPT and how to use it).
What do you get with free ChatGPT?
The free plan is meant for everyday tasks. The OpenAI pricing page currently states that you can chat in text with the latest general model without limits for free (with abuse protections). A model here means a specific version of ChatGPT's "brain"; different plans give access to different models.
What is limited is the part that costs OpenAI the most: file and photo uploads, image creation, voice chats, deep research (a longer web search that ends with a report), memory and the length of a single chat. According to the pricing page, on the free plan you can submit about 12 pages of text at once, and considerably more on paid plans. During heavy load, responses for free users may be slower.
OpenAI does not publish the exact number of messages or files and changes them, so rely on your own experience rather than a number: if you rarely hit the limit, there is nothing to pay for.
Paid ChatGPT plans and prices in euros (checked October 23, 2026)
Below are the prices shown on the ChatGPT pricing page when opened from Lithuania. Prices are per month.
- Go: €8. More messages, file uploads and images and a longer memory than the free plan. Ads may be shown on this plan.
- Plus: €23. More advanced reasoning models, more messages and files, broader deep research, projects and scheduled tasks. OpenAI says Plus and higher plans are ad-free. The pricing page also lists custom GPTs under Plus, but OpenAI is shutting them down on December 11, 2026 and suggests moving them to plugins, so they are not a reason to buy Plus.
- Pro: from €103. Pro has three usage tiers; the OpenAI Help Center lists them in US dollars at $100, $200 and $500, while the pricing page for Lithuania shows the cheapest tier at €103. The tiers differ in usage volume, and the fastest responses (Ultrafast) are only in the most expensive one. This plan is for people who work with ChatGPT all day; a beginner definitely does not need it.
- Business: for companies, from 2 to 200 users. A Standard seat costs €21 per user per month billed annually, or €26 billed monthly; a Premium seat with five times more usage costs €105 or €130. We wrote about the business plan, data protection and GDPR in the article on ChatGPT for business (ChatGPT for business).
- Enterprise: for large organizations. Pricing by individual quote.
How you pay. Go, Plus and Pro are billed monthly only: OpenAI does not currently offer an annual plan or paying several months in advance. When you buy on chatgpt.com in the European Economic Area, you pay in euros by card. If you buy the subscription through the iPhone or Android app, Apple App Store or Google Play handles the payment, and the price may differ from the website price.
Including VAT? The OpenAI Help Center describes how companies can enter a VAT number, but we could not officially confirm whether the amount shown on the pricing page for Lithuania already includes VAT. The most accurate amount is the one you see at checkout before you confirm the payment.
- 1 Monthly price for each plan – in euros, based on your country
- 2 Free plan limits: uploads, images, voice and deep research are "Limited"
What is the ChatGPT API, and why does Plus not include it?
The API (application programming interface) is the way another program, such as your website, online store or internal system, sends requests to OpenAI models without the ChatGPT chat window. It is not a personal tool but "raw material" for developers.
The API is billed not by subscription but by actual usage, counted in tokens. A token is a small piece of text (part of a word or a few characters); the longer the text you send and receive, the more tokens are used. Prices are published per million tokens and differ by model: for example, on October 19, 2026 the cheapest general model listed on the OpenAI API pricing page cost $0.20 per million input tokens, and the most advanced ones dozens of times more. API credits are bought only in US dollars, in a separate OpenAI platform account.
Most importantly: the OpenAI Help Center clearly states that a ChatGPT Plus subscription does not include API usage; it is billed separately. If you normally type in the ChatGPT chat window, you do not need the API and will not have to pay for it.
When is ChatGPT Plus or Go worth paying for?
Examples of when a paid plan will most likely pay for itself:
- You use ChatGPT every day at work. For example, an office manager prepares emails, proposal drafts and meeting summaries daily, and the limit runs out in the middle of the day: then Go or Plus saves more time than it costs.
- You often work with long documents. If you want to upload a 30–40 page report or contract and ask questions about it, the free plan's capacity may be too small.
- You need deeper analysis. For complex calculations, planning or multi-step problems, reasoning models help, and they are more widely available on the Plus plan.
- You create many images or use voice chat. These features are the most limited on the free plan. How to create images and what you can do for free is described separately (How to create an image with AI).
If you are torn between Go and Plus: Go is more of what you get for free, while Plus adds more advanced models and extra features. For most beginners who simply run out of the limit, Go is the logical first step.
When is paying not worth it?
- You use ChatGPT a few times a week. For the occasional email or text edit, the free version is enough.
- You do not yet know what you will use it for. First try it free for two weeks and write down when you ran out of features.
- You expect the paid version to stop making mistakes. Paid models make mistakes less often, but they still do. You will have to check facts, numbers and legal information on any plan.
- You want to use it with your company's client data. A personal Plus plan is not a company solution: business plans with administration and a data processing agreement are meant for that.
- You see a website offering "ChatGPT access" more cheaply. Sharing and reselling accounts is forbidden by OpenAI's terms of use: pay only officially, through chatgpt.com or the official app.
How to subscribe and how to cancel a ChatGPT subscription
You can subscribe after signing in to ChatGPT: profile icon → Upgrade plan → choose a plan. Since billing is monthly, you can try one month and decide whether to continue.
You have to cancel on the platform where you bought it:
- You bought it on chatgpt.com. Sign in → account menu → Settings → Billing → next to "Cancel plan", click "Cancel".
- You bought it on an iPhone or iPad. Phone Settings → your name → Subscriptions → ChatGPT → Cancel Subscription.
- You bought it on Android. Google Play app → Subscriptions → ChatGPT → Cancel subscription.
Worth knowing, according to the OpenAI Help Center: cancel at least 24 hours before the next billing date; deleting the app does not cancel the subscription; after canceling, paid features remain until the end of the paid period; canceling does not by itself refund money already paid, as refunds have to be requested separately.
- 1 Billing – here you will find "Cancel plan" and the Cancel button
When a ChatGPT chat is no longer enough
If you pay for ChatGPT and copy the same data from email or spreadsheets into the chat window every day, the problem is probably no longer the plan but the process. In that case it is more useful to look at what an AI agent that works directly with your company's systems can do (AI agents for business). And if you are choosing whether to pay for ChatGPT or another tool, we compared them by task (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot).
Sources
ChatGPT pricing: all plans and what they include; you will also see the price for your country here.
OpenAI Help Center: What is ChatGPT Plus?: the Plus price, monthly billing and the fact that the API is not included.
OpenAI Help Center: About ChatGPT Pro tiers: differences between the $100, $200 and $500 Pro tiers.
OpenAI: Introducing ChatGPT Go: what the Go plan includes.
OpenAI Help Center: custom GPTs shutdown: custom GPTs shut down on December 11, 2026 and move to plugins.
OpenAI API pricing: API prices per token by model.
OpenAI Help Center: How do I cancel my subscription?: cancellation steps on the website, Apple and Google Play.