OpenAI is not yet making a profit on ChatGPT. Even the most expensive $200-a-month Pro subscription costs the company more money than it makes.
OpenAI has so far failed to make a profit on ChatGPT. Even the ChatGPT Pro subscription introduced in December will not change that for the time being. “Insane: we are currently losing money on Pro subscriptions! People are using it much more than we expected,” Sam Altman writes on X.
The ChatGPT Pro subscription saw the light of day last month during OpenAI’s “Christmas promotion. For a price of $200 a month, you get “unlimited access” to all of OpenAI’s models, including the latest Sora and o1 models. Altman reportedly set the price of the subscription himself in hopes that it would be the right price to make a profit.
Five billion dollar loss
OpenAI faces skyrocketing costs to keep ChatGPT running. Infrastructure costs in particular are running high. OpenAI realized $3.7 billion in revenue in 2024, yet is making nearly $5 billion in losses. The company admits it needs “more capital” to keep its head above water.
A restructuring of the company should ensure greater profitability. OpenAI is partly a for-profit company and a nonprofit research institution. In the new structure, commercial activities would carry much more weight.
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This will allow the company to get more revenue from its operations, which the current structure hinders. In turn, that will attract new investors. Thus, that ChatGPT subscriptions will become more expensive in the future cannot be ruled out.