Summary

The author of the article is considering canceling their ChatGPT Plus subscription due to the perceived lack of value for the $20 monthly cost, despite some improvements in response speed.

Abstract

The author, a user of ChatGPT, decided to try the new ChatGPT Plus subscription service, which promises faster response times and no usage limits for $20 per month. After conducting several tests, including generating SQL queries, Python code for sending emails, simulating job interviews, and creating website code, the author found that while ChatGPT Plus was faster, the difference in speed did not justify the cost. The author also notes that similar speeds can be achieved using OpenAI's Playground for free and that free search engines like Microsoft Bing are beginning to incorporate ChatGPT functionalities. Additionally, the author points out that the free version of ChatGPT occasionally provided unexpected but useful outputs, such as generating additional HTML code when not explicitly asked. Ultimately, the author concludes that the speed boost of ChatGPT Plus is not substantial enough to warrant the monthly fee and suggests that readers consider the value proposition carefully before subscribing.

Opinions

The author initially subscribed to ChatGPT Plus with high expectations for improved speed and no usage limits but found the service to be only marginally faster.
The speed improvements of ChatGPT Plus were not significant enough to justify the $20 monthly cost, especially for simple tasks or when free alternatives like OpenAI's Playground are available.
The author was underwhelmed by the performance of ChatGPT Plus, particularly when considering the value provided by the free version and other free services that offer similar functionalities.
The author suggests that the free version of ChatGPT can sometimes offer additional, unprompted content, which can be beneficial.
The author believes that the cost of ChatGPT Plus does not align with the benefits received, especially with the advent of free search engines integrating ChatGPT-like features.
The author encourages readers to weigh their options and consider whether the premium features of ChatGPT Plus are worth the investment, given the current landscape of available tools and services.

I Think I’ll Cancel My ChatGPT Plus $20 Subscription

I love ChatGPT, but after testing it for some days, I think the $20 subscription isn’t worth it.

Image via Shutterstock (edited with Canva)

Last week, I subscribed to ChatGPT Plus, but I think I’ll cancel my subscription soon.

I love ChatGPT, so when I first saw that ChatGPT Plus was available in my region I thought it’ll be a good idea to give it a try. The main difference between the free and paid version are these.

This means that with the paid version we wouldn’t get the annoying message “too many requests in 1 hour. try again later.” However, I didn’t subscribe because of this. I almost never had trouble using ChatGPT even when the demand was high.

The main reason for me to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus was speed. I heard that ChatGPT Plus had a Turbo mode that was faster than the one we have in the free plan.

And that is true.

However, it wasn’t as fast as I expected (at least not worth it $20/month).

Let’s see if ChatGPT Plus is worth it for you. I’ll test ChatGPT and ChatGPT Plus with prompts that generate 100, 1000, and more than 1000 words.

Test #1: Simple prompt to generate less than 100 words

First, I used both ChatGPT Plus (left) and free ChatGPT (right), to generate a SQL query through the prompt below.

A query to list the names of the departments which employed more than 10 employees in the last 3 months. Consider the following SQL tables with their properties: # Employee(id, name, department_id), # Department(id, name, address), # Salary_Payments(id, employee_id, amount, date)

ChatGPT Plus took around 7 seconds to do this, while free ChatGPT needed 38 seconds. ChatGPT Plus is 31 seconds faster.

To make sure this wasn’t a coincidence, I tested both versions of ChatGPT with another simple prompt.

send an email from “email_1” to “email_2” with the subject “Email sent by ChatGPT” and the content “ChatGPT rocks!” using Python

ChatGPT Plus did it in 14s, while free ChatGPT did it in 47s.

Again, at least 30 seconds faster. This isn’t bad, but I expected faster results for the paid version. This may seem insignificant when generating less than 100 words, but speed is relevant when giving ChatGPT more complex requests.

Let’s have a look.

Test #2: Prompt to generate less than 1000 words

The gap in speed between the free and paid version should be bigger the more characters they have to generate, so I made them both simulate a job interview conversation with a maximum of 1000 words (You can find this and 100+ prompts on my free cheat sheet)

Simulate a job interview for a software engineer position by asking and answering questions as if you are a potential employer and I’m the candidate . Consider that I’ve only taken online courses and have no working experience. Generate 1000 words

Here are the results.

This time I pressed the stop button 5 seconds after the test ended (Oops!). Anyway, ChatGPT Plus generated 655 words in 1 minute and 2 seconds, while free ChatGPT generated 589 words in 1 minute and 53 seconds.

Now we have a 51-second gap.

This looks good, but to be honest I wouldn’t pay $20 a month to wait 1 minute to generate 600 words.

Actually, I already get that speed from OpenAI Playground.

Yes, Playground is not exactly the same as ChatGPT, but for some of us, Playground’s features would be enough. Besides, they give you an $18 credit which should be more than enough for the 3-month trial.

Again, I wouldn’t pay $20 for a “faster response speed,” which isn’t that fast when it comes to generating thousands of tokens.

In my final test, we’ll see this much better.

Test #3: Prompt to generate a complete website

For my last test, I use both versions of ChatGPT to generate Python code and HTML code to build a website. The prompt is quite long, but it helped me build almost the whole website from scratch (for more info about building a website with ChatGPT, watch my YouTube tutorial)

First I asked ChatGPT to generate only the Python code. It took ChatGPT Plus 36 seconds, while free ChatGPT did it in 1 minute and 51 seconds BUT free ChatGPT also generated part of the HTML code (I didn’t ask for it though).

Anyway, I had to type “continue” on free ChatGPT to generate the rest of the HTML code and ask ChatGPT Plus to generate the HTML code for the first time.

Considering both the Python and HTML code, it took ChatGPT Plus 1 minute and 16 seconds, while it took 2 minutes and 16 seconds for the free version.

ChatGPT Plus is indeed faster than ChatGPT, but the boost in speed isn’t worth $20. I know that this subscription plan will help OpenAI make ChatGPT free to use, but I don’t think the price is reasonable taking into account that now free search engines like Microsoft Bing have some ChatGPT functionalities.

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