OpenAI is rapidly expanding its low-cost ChatGPT Go plan, which costs under $5, to 16 new countries in Asia. The subscription tier is now available in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, East Timor and Vietnam.
In select countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Pakistan, the company allows users to pay in local currencies. In other countries, users have to pay in USD at a price of around $5, and the final cost varies depending on local taxes.
ChatGPT Go provides users with higher daily limits for messaging, generating images, and uploading files or images per day. The plan also offers twice the memory of the free plan, allowing for more personalized responses.
According to OpenAI, the expansion comes as its weekly active user base in Southeast Asia quadruples. The plan was first rolled out in India in August, followed by Indonesia in September. OpenAI reports that the number of paid subscribers in India has doubled since launch.
OpenAI is competing with Google to make affordable AI chatbot subscription plans available in more regions. Google released a similar price Google AI Plus plan in Indonesia in Septemberand then expansion to over 40 countries. The Plus tier gives users access to Gemini 2.5 Pro, Google's most advanced AI model, along with creative image and video tools – including Flow (for design), Whisk (for image remixing) and Veo 3 Fast (for video creation) – as well as 200 GB of cloud storage.
The expansion comes at a pivotal time for OpenAI. At the DevDay 2025 conference this week in San Francisco, CEO Sam Altman announced that ChatGPT has reached 800 million weekly active users worldwide, up from 700 million in August. The company also announced a major replatform, introducing apps that run directly on ChatGPT and transform the chatbot into an app store-like ecosystem, with partners like Spotify, Zillow and Coursera. among others.
“The evolution that we're trying to make over the next few years is that ChatGPT itself is more like an operating system where you can go in and use applications,” ChatGPT CEO Nick Turley told TechCrunch of the development on the fringes of the event. “If you want to write, there's an app for that. If you want to code, there's an app for that. If you want to interact with goods and services, there are apps for you.”
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Despite OpenAI's rapid growth and recent valuation of $500 billion, the company reported an operating loss of $7.8 billion in the first half of 2025 as it continues to spend heavily on AI infrastructure. The company's affordable subscription tiers, such as ChatGPT Go, are seen as an important step towards achieving profitability while expanding its global user base, particularly in fast-growing markets in Asia where both OpenAI and Google compete aggressively for market share.
