ChatGPT Plus: The Features and Benefits for Businesses

Since ChatGPT launched in November 2022, it’s proven to be a transformational tool for consumers and businesses alike. With more than 180 million monthly users, ChatGPT has emerged as one of the fastest-growing “apps” in the digital world, and it’s easy to see why.

The generative AI solution supports a huge range of use cases, from improving worker productivity to generating content and even enhancing customer experience. 

If you’ve tested this technology for yourself already, you might be wondering whether it’s worth investing in the next level experience – ChatGPT Plus. As the “premium” version of ChatGPT, “Plus” offers a variety of unique features and benefits – including the option to create and customise your own GPT experience. 

So, is it worth the $20 per month, per user price tag?

What is ChatGPT Plus? The Basics

ChatGPT, the large language model-powered generative AI app from OpenAI was first rolled out as a “free app” in November 2024. After a quick surge in popularity, OpenAI launched a subscription plan that would allow users to access advanced features, in exchange for a monthly fee.

ChatGPT Plus is the “premium” version of the solution, costing $20 per month. It guarantees users general access to the app during peak times (without delays), offers faster response times, and unlocks various new features and improvements. 

For instance, with the free version of ChatGPT, you only access the GPT-3.5 model, but with ChatGPT Plus, you can use the latest model, GPT-4, which is more effective at understanding content, and can even browse the internet in real-time. 

You also get instant access to ChatGPT plugins, DALL-E 3 image generation, and the option to create and customise bots with ChatGPT Plus. 

The Features of ChatGPT Plus: What You Can Do

For the most part, the experience you get with ChatGPT Plus is the same as what you’d expect from the free app. There’s the same conversational interface and the same excellent level of versatility. ChatGPT Plus simply enhances the AI service, offering:

Access without Limits

Probably the biggest benefit of ChatGPT Plus for most users is the fact that you can access the app without limitations and restrictions. During peak times, the free version of the app can often slow down and stop working. However, the premium alternative continues to provide service to those with a paid subscription, ensuring you can bypass “server at capacity” problems.

The ChatGPT web app for Plus users is also a lot faster and can process up to twice as many tokens (pieces of information), as its free alternative. This means you can submit more complex prompts, with more advanced insights and instructions, to get better responses. 

Complete AI Tool Access

Alongside improved performance, ChatGPT Plus gives users priority access to the latest new features and updates created by OpenAI. Whenever OpenAI upgrades the language model it uses for ChatGPT, or introduces a new function, like the GPT Builder (mentioned below), you’ll get immediate access. 

While some of the features introduced to Plus users do become available for free users later, (such as custom instructions), your subscription will ensure you can try them out first. 

You also get advanced data analysis, plugins, and DALL-E 3. Probably the best feature is the GPT-4 solution, which allows users to access advanced processing capabilities and multi-modal options. For instance, ChatGPT Plus can analyse and “read” images as well as text. 

Multiple Model Support

As well as GPT-4, ChatGPT Plus users can switch between other models offered by OpenAI, such as GPT-4V, and GPT-4 Turbo. GPT-4 is the AI model exclusive to paid customers on ChatGPT Plus or ChatGPT Enterprise subscriptions. GPT-4V is almost the same, but it includes visual cognition capabilities. This means your AI can understand images, graphs, and videos. 

The updated models support “multimodal machine translation”, which means the AI can take textual information and image content into consideration at the same time. Plus, there’s Natural Language for Visual Reasoning technology, which helps to improve the accuracy of the bot’s responses.

Web Browsing and Grounding

One major difference between the free version of ChatGPT and ChatGPT Plus is that the paid solution can access the internet. This means it’s not limited to using only the data provided by OpenAI up to a certain date to answer your questions. 

It can check out specific websites you recommend, and browse the web to check the accuracy of its responses. This makes it much easier to create content and access analytical information that you know is relevant and up to date. 

The ChatGPT Plus Bot Creation Service

For users who want a completely unique ChatGPT experience, the Plus subscription also allows you to create a “custom GPT”. To do this, you’ll need to log into your account, click on the “Explore” tab, and select “Create a GPT”. This takes you to OpenAI’s GPT builder, which allows you to enter prompts and information to help design your chatbot. 

There’s also a “preview” panel included, so you can interact with your chatbot as you build it, and refine it as you go. Plus, you can “configure” your bot with a specific profile picture, and experiment with advanced settings, like integrating DALL-E 3. 

Notably, this feature builds on the capabilities of the “custom instructions” feature, which allows you to adapt how ChatGPT responds to questions in the free plan. While Custom Instructions are great for altering the tone of voice and personality of your bot, the GPT builder means you can build an entire solution with your own data and knowledge, specific capabilities, and actions. 

When you click “Add Actions” on the builder, you can use tools like AI Actions by Zapier to connect your GPT to thousands of other apps, like Google Calendar or Slack. This means you can build bots with comprehensive automated workflows. 

Open AI even allows you to share your chatbot with other users, using a custom link, and you can edit its functionality whenever you choose, from within your account.

How to Access ChatGPT Plus

If you decide you do want to access ChatGPT Plus, signing up is pretty simple. The service is available to users worldwide and costs $20 per month. Some territories are excluded, however, due to government restrictions on AI and internet access, so keep this in mind. 

To upgrade, log into your OpenAI account using your email address, Google, or Microsoft account, and open the app. Select your account and click on “Upgrade to Plus”. You can find this button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page. You’ll be taken to the sign-up and payment page, where you can choose between ChatGPT Plus or ChatGPT Enterprise.

Notably, the Enterprise version has custom pricing, and extra features like SAML SSO, and improved data privacy and access controls. There’s also a “Team” version of ChatGPT Plus, which gives you workspace management features and extra tools, for $25 per user per month. 

Is ChatGPT Plus Worth It?

So, should you upgrade to ChatGPT Plus? If you’re already using the generative AI app to help you create content, conduct research, and streamline tasks, it’s a worthwhile purchase. The Plus subscription gives you some excellent extra features, including advanced access to new language models and capabilities. Plus, it empowers you to create your own GPT bots.

However, we’d still recommend using the free version to begin with if you’re new to the platform. It’s still generously packed with features if you’re low on budget.