OpenAI has unveiled a new budget-friendly subscription tier for ChatGPT in India called ChatGPT Go, priced at ?399 per month ($4.60). The plan, announced today, is far more affordable than the ChatGPT Plus plan, which costs ?1,999 per month (about $23) in India after the recent rollout of local currency pricing.
The Go plan comes with 10 times more allowances for messages, image generation, and file uploads compared to the free tier. It also enables better memory retention for more personalized conversations, according to Nick Turley, VP at OpenAI and head of ChatGPT.
“Making ChatGPT more affordable has been a key ask from users! We’re rolling out Go in India first and will learn from feedback before expanding to other countries,” Turley said.
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A critical part of the rollout is that Indian users can now pay through UPI (Unified Payment Interface), the country’s dominant digital payments system, which is widely used across both urban and rural regions.
Why India first?
India has become a powerhouse market for AI adoption, and OpenAI has been witnessing surging demand in the country. According to AppFigures, ChatGPT recorded more than 29 million downloads in India in the past 90 days alone, making the country the largest driver of new app installations worldwide. However, the app only generated $3.6 million in revenue from India during the same period, highlighting a massive gap between downloads and paid subscriptions.
OpenAI is betting that the Go plan will convert more of India’s 850+ million internet users into paying subscribers by offering a more accessible price point, improving monetization in one of its biggest markets.
CEO Sam Altman has openly described India as OpenAI’s second-largest market globally, and the company has made several strategic adjustments to appeal to local users, including optimized pricing and more features for image generation and file processing.
Competition heats up in India’s AI market
OpenAI’s move also comes as rival AI companies intensify their efforts to court Indian users. Perplexity AI recently partnered with telecom giant Airtel to provide free Perplexity Pro subscriptions to its subscribers. Google rolled out a free one-year AI Pro plan for Indian students, positioning itself to build loyalty among young users who may become long-term subscribers.
While OpenAI is not offering freebies, its aggressive local pricing strategy is expected to give it an edge, especially as many Indian consumers remain price-sensitive despite a strong appetite for digital services.
The ChatGPT Go plan is currently geo-restricted to India, but OpenAI confirmed on its support page that it intends to expand the offering to other countries after learning from this pilot launch.
The timing of this rollout coincides with ChatGPT’s rapid growth: last month, Turley revealed the service now boasts more than 700 million weekly active users globally, up from 500 million in March. The surge has been partly fueled by OpenAI’s addition of image generation capabilities in March, which has seen particularly strong traction in India.
Tech watchers say the Go plan is designed not only to make ChatGPT more inclusive for India’s vast internet base but also to plug a revenue leak in markets where adoption is high but paid conversions remain low.
As Tibor Blaho, a software engineer known for accurately leaking upcoming AI product launches, had teased earlier, the Go plan represents OpenAI’s latest experiment in making advanced AI accessible without alienating cost-conscious users.
For OpenAI, the move is both a strategic expansion and a business necessity: India is where AI adoption is exploding, but revenue still lags far behind. With the Go plan, OpenAI is hoping to change that equation.