ChatGPT may soon offer lifetime access to your AI queries
OpenAI may soon introduce weekly and lifetime plans.
OpenAI's greatest challenge right now isn't building smarter AI. It's paying for it. Training massive models and running millions of queries a day doesn’t come cheap, and now the company might be looking for more people to help cover the tab.
The company behind ChatGPT is reportedly exploring new subscription models, including weekly and lifetime options, to get more users to pay for AI-generated text, code, and images.
Just last year, OpenAI was rumoured to be burning through cash fast enough to flirt with bankruptcy, with projected losses of up to $5 billion. Yet it has kept funding flowing from the likes of Microsoft, NVIDIA, Thrive Capital and SoftBank with a valuation that has reached $300 billion.
Louis Eriakha
But for all the funding, OpenAI is still struggling to chart a clear path to profitability. Running cutting-edge AI isn’t cheap; training models, paying elite talent, acquiring mountains of data, and keeping the GPUs cool adds up fast. And its close ties to Microsoft add both power and complexity.
To recoup some of the runaway costs, OpenAI is reportedly looking beyond its current $20/month ChatGPT Plus plan. APK code in the latest ChatGPT Android app (spotted by @M1Astra via Android Authority) hints at new weekly, annual, and even lifetime subscription tiers.
Weekly access could appeal to casual users who just need premium power to wrap up a report, launch a marketing push, or crank out an image set. It’s a pay-as-you-go model for a generation used to streaming and on-demand everything. The lifetime tier, on the other hand, is a wildcard. Few companies offer it anymore, especially not in AI, where operational costs don’t stop just because you prepaid.
Right now, OpenAI's known offerings include ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) and the $200/month Pro tier. A weekly pass would offer a low-commitment onramp, which could be a smart play as AI competition heats up. Rivals like Google’s Gemini, Elon Musk’s Grok AI, and DeepSeek are all fighting for the same eyeballs—and wallets.
We don’t know how much these new plans will cost, or if they’ll even roll out publicly. OpenAI hasn’t confirmed anything yet. But in a market where user retention is everything, more flexible pricing could be the lever OpenAI needs.
Meanwhile, the company is also experimenting with other monetisation angles, including ChatGPT’s shopping integrations, and a flurry of new models.
Louis Eriakha
As the AI race accelerates, OpenAI’s challenge isn’t just technical, it’s financial. The company that brought generative AI into the mainstream now has to prove it can sustain it. Subscriptions—weekly, yearly, or forever—may be a critical part of that survival plan.
