Seriously, Why Do Some AI Chatbot Subscriptions Cost More Than $200?
Launched late last year, the plan designed for power users includes almost unlimited access to ChatGPT as well as first dibs on feature launches, like OpenAI's new agent. The plan attracted, well, power users. A month after its initial release, Altman claimed OpenAI was still losing money on the all-you-can-eat subscription.
Even though Altman admitted the $200 monthly tier was a money-loser, the release set a precedent and ushered in the vibe-based pricing era for expensive chatbot subscriptions.
Generative AI tools are costly and resource-intensive to run, with many startups rapidly burning through cash. And much like how OpenAI defined the consumer market for chatbots with the release of ChatGPT, Altman's $200-a-month price tier for ChatGPT Pro was matched by competitors.
In April, Anthropic dropped Claude Max for $200 a month. Google got into the game not too long after with the AI Ultra plan for Gemini, which costs $250 a month and includes cloud storage. These releases were followed by the monthly $200 Cursor Ultra plan, for AI-assisted coding, and the $200 monthly Perplexity Max plan, for AI-powered search. The most recent addition to the trend, xAI's SuperGrok plan, is also the most expensive at $300.
Despite this trend in pricing for the most expensive tier, many of the companies continue to offer free, albeit limited, access to their generative AI tools as well as a $20-a-month plan for users who want more access to the models but aren't going buck wild with it.
'This higher-tier subscription is first testing for new interfaces and new interactions,' says Allie K. Miller, an influential business consultant who subscribes to many of the most expensive plans. She sorts who's actually paying for these $200-and-up plans into two core groups. First, you have a faction of Silicon Valley insiders who have money to burn and want to experiment with 'alpha products that are on the more expensive side.' For this group the value is not really about making money with the tools. 'It gives them not only cachet in their community, but they feel like a new-age explorer,' she says. Miller lumps Google Glass and Apple Vision Pro owners into this same group.
The second core group of subs, as Miller describes it, believes they are getting a solid return on their investment. 'We're making back that money with time saved or revenue earned in very little time,' she says. This could include Silicon Valley investors who are trying to use AI Ultra to automate email communications, software developers who are using Claude Max to code for hours every day, and investment bankers who are turning to Perplexity Max for daily market updates. Dmitry Shevelenko, the chief business officer at Perplexity, claims that a majority of subscribers to the Max plan use it as a money making tool.
'I probably saved a lot more than $200 per month for a long time by talking to Claude about my mortgage,' says Scott White, Anthropic's head of product for Claude. He thinks of Claude Max subscribers 'as people with a builder mentality, a problem-solving mentality who are sophisticated enough and motivated enough to get all of the use and power output.' White used the generative AI tool to help decide how much of his home mortgage to pay down as well as other personal financial analysis.
Why the $200 price tag, though? White declined to discuss specifics about the economics of Claude Max's pricing and whether Anthropic is losing money on the plan. He brought the conversation back to the value provided by Anthropic to power users and how the abilities of AI tools are improving. 'It's a very dynamic environment,' says White. 'We are going to be adaptable. The market is going to be adaptable.'
Leaders at Google are also keeping an eye on the competition when it comes to pricing the company's most expensive AI subscription. 'We look at what makes sense in terms of the market landscape,' says Shimrit Ben-Yair, a vice president of Google One and Google Photos. She lists the cost to provide the included features and the perceived value to consumers as two additional factors contributing to why Google picked $250 a month for its AI Ultra plan. Google did not respond to follow-up messages asking whether the company is losing money by providing this to power users.
OpenAI and Cursor declined to comment for this story. Market Forces
As a non-builder normie, paying that much for any AI tool is impossible to justify as part of my budget. I canceled my ChatGPT Pro subscription almost immediately after I finished testing the new agent feature for work. When the recurring $18 charge for Netflix is on the bubble, allocating $200 every month to an AI tool feels laughable. In this economy? Be real. But, leaders at AI companies are hopeful that those top-shelf plans, which are pleasing power users now, will attract more mainstream subscribers in the future.
Ben-Yair considers Google's $20-a-month plan for basic Gemini access as already having reached mainstream adoption from consumers, with the $250-a-month tier potentially following soon behind. 'It's true that while it skews a bit more professional today,' Ben-Yair says, 'my personal passion is the consumer space and what it can unlock.' Anthropic's White hopes to cultivate additional power users for Claude by making the tool simpler to use and providing more user guidance inside the chatbot.
Even if the companies were able to convert more everyday people into power users who are willing to pay multiple hundreds a month for AI access—a tough sell for the millions of Americans living paycheck to paycheck—it remains unclear how long OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others can even can afford to offer this high-level access to generative AI tools.
One thing that is almost for certain, though, is that the cost of these plans won't stay stagnant in the coming years. They will just get more expensive. 'We have not hit the ceiling on the cost of these systems, particularly in the enterprise space,' says Miller. When the market price is set by vibes, truly anything is possible.
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