Is the ChatGPT Plus subscription worth it? A writers’s perspective
$20 per month, yay or nay?
So let’s break it down.
What are you actually getting for $20/month and is it worth the money?
The language models
First of all, what is it actually that OpenAI is offering, and how would it help your daily work as a writer?
Unlimited access to GPT-3.5
Unlike the free ChatGPT version, a subscription gives you unlimited access to the GPT-3.5 model (more precisely, its GPT-3.5-Turbo running in the background). This is the current default model when talking about ChatGPT: it’s fast, it’s reliable, and if you know its capabilities (and limitations), it becomes incredibly valuable for brainstorming, ideation, and even content creation. Using it in a language other than English makes little sense, as the training data is mainly in English and the best results are achieved in English. So, to sum up, for your $20, you primarily get a smart writing assistant that can do many other useful tasks besides the obvious brainstorming and idea generation. Here are some great examples of what you can achieve with GPT-3.5:
Limited access to GPT-4
The ChatGPT subscription also includes limited access to GPT-4, the newer and more advanced sibling of GPT-3.5. At the time of writing, you can send 25 messages to GPT-4 every 3 hours. This limitation is due to excessive demand and scaling issues at OpenAI, which will hopefully resolve their issues and make GPT-4 available to more people in the future. Given the high-quality responses you get from GPT-4, those 25 messages can be a lot! Access to GPT-4 is a big change as it surpasses its predecessor in every way, is capable of amazing things, and can handle many languages with high professionalism.
Advanced language models
Using GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 alone is such a time saver, but there is more:
Bing powered GPT-4
In addition to the standard GPT-4 model, you can also use a “Bing-powered” version of GPT-4, which gives the model access to the Internet and thus to all the data it needs to consider. This is fantastic for research. However, it is a beta version, which means there are still some bugs, especially if you want to review and evaluate multiple websites. For authors, this saves a lot of time on research and provides quick answers or explanations on complex topics. You may want to check out these:
Plugin powered GPT-4
The third way to use GPT-4 with ChatGPT is “plugin mode”: choose from an ever-growing number of plugins that add special capabilities to your AI model, such as PDF upload, Youtube transcriptions, travel planning, and more. You could even write your own ChatGPT plugin (not knowing how to code is not an excuse anymore).
Updates
From time to time, OpenAI tests new features and provides updates for ChatGPT. As a paying subscriber, you will be among the first to have access to the fancy new stuff. For example:
Chat History Management
ChatGPT’s chat history management is a bit cluttered, to say the least, but there is a simple workaround that allows you to search all your conversations for specific keywords, prompts, or results. Here is a quick guide:
Chat Link Sharing
Thanks to a recent update, you can now also easily share your ChatGPT conversations. Your colleagues can pick up where you left off, and your original conversation won’t be affected. Here’s how it’s done:
Conclusion
In my opinion, $20/month is absolutely worth it.
Not only do you get to use two of the best AI language models in the world, but you also get all the updates and enhancements that OpenAI will be adding to their ChatGPT interface in the coming months.
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