Tech

OpenAI pauses ChatGPT Plus sign ups, here’s why – Times of India

November 15, 2023
Saqafy Times

Microsoft-backed artificial intelligence startup has decided to hit the pause button on users trying to sign up for the paid version of its popular chatbot ChatGPT. The company’s CEO Sam Altman took to social media platform X to confirm that OpenAI has temporarily stopped “new ChatGPT Plus sign-ups.” In the post, he also explains that the “surge in usage post devday has exceeded our capacity and we want to make sure everyone has a great experience.” However, users can “still sign up to be notified within the app.” The company will notify the users when subscriptions for ChatGPT Plus reopen.

Last week, OpenAI introduced new features and upgrades for its popular chatbot at the company’s first-ever developer conference. The upgraded version of the GPT 4 now allows users to build custom versions of ChatGPT to accomplish specific tasks. This announcement has reportedly increased the demand for OpenAI’s artificial intelligence tools and services.
ChatGPT Plus: Price and other details
The paid version of the viral generative AI chatbot, ChatGPT offers more benefits. OpenAI also enables ChaGPT Plus users to access the more powerful GPT-4 large multimodal model (LMM).
In March, OpenAI made ChatGPT Plus subscriptions available for users in India. The subscription is priced at $20 per month. ChatGPT Plus subscribers get general access to the chatbot even during peak hours. Apart from getting access to new features and improvements, the paid subscription also offers faster response times.

However, OpenAI continues offering a free version of ChatGPT which can be used without paying the company. In a blog post, the company explains: “By offering this subscription pricing, we will be able to help support free access availability to as many people as possible.”
Once available, users will be able to see an option to “Upgrade to Plus” on the left sidebar after they log in to their account on chat.openai.com. Clicking on the option, the website shows the benefits of choosing a subscription over the free version. This pop-up also has an “Upgrade plan” button. Selecting this button will redirect users to a payment gateway, where Indian users can use their credit cards to make the payment.