Last year, OpenAI was rumored to be on the verge of bankruptcy, with projections of making a $5 billion loss within 12 months. However, investors, including Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Thrive Capital, raised $6.6 billion, pushing the company's market valuation to $156 billion.
More recently, the AI firm held another round of funding led by SoftBank, raising $40 billion, pushing its market capitalization to $300 billion. Still, OpenAI struggles to establish a clear profitability path, partly due to its tie-up with Microsoft.
The company's losses are predominantly attributed to the cost of training and running advanced AI models, employee salaries, data, and more. To counter this major setback, the ChatGPT maker has floated the idea of introducing costly subscription plans for its advanced AI models that think harder for the most complex problems.
It now seems that OpenAI will introduce weekly and lifetime subscription plans to access its advanced AI services. Currently, OpenAI's subscription plans can be paid monthly or annually.
According to a spot by @M1Astra on X (via Android Authority), an APK teardown of ChatGPT's latest build reveals that OpenAI might soon introduce a weekly and lifetime subscription plan.
OpenAI is considering Lifetime and Weekly subscriptions for ChatGPT - found in latest ChatGPT build! pic.twitter.com/LpAN1vgWinMay 8, 2025
The code strings indicate that the change could impact OpenAI's ChatGPT Plus (which costs $20 monthly). However, users can get yearly subscriptions to ChatGPT Team or Enterprise offerings.
As such, OpenAI introducing a weekly subscription plan for ChatGPT isn't farfetched, and seems more practical for users who require access to its advanced features on occasion.
However, it'll be interesting to see how OpenAI pulls the lifetime subscription plan for ChatGPT Plus and if users will adopt it. As you may know, generative AI is ever-evolving, and it seems to be getting expensive as it scales to greater heights.
What are your thoughts on a lifetime subscription plan for ChatGPT Plus? Share your thoughts in the comments.
