Skip to content
CountMyToken

Subscriptions

AI plans vs API

The first line says which costs less for the usage you describe: the chat subscription or the API. Subscription prices were read from the companies’ own pages on 23 October 2026. ChatGPT Go is left out because a current page did not state a dollar price.

Cheaper option

For this usage, the API is the cheaper option, at $0.45 a month. The lowest priced chat plan we can compare is ChatGPT Plus at $20.00.

This is a price comparison, not a promise that the chat plan will allow this much use. The chat plan and the API are different products. A month here is 30 days. Plan prices were checked on 23 October 2026.

API cost for this description: $0.45 a month on GPT-6 Luna. OpenAI does not publish a token allowance for these chat plans.

  • The API is cheaper than ChatGPT Plus by about $19.55 a month

    ChatGPT Plus is $20.00 a month. This API usage is $0.45.

    $20 a month. OpenAI’s help page does not list an annual price.

    A chat subscription. API use is not included.

    Price source

  • The API is cheaper than ChatGPT Pro 100 by about $99.55 a month

    ChatGPT Pro 100 is $100.00 a month. This API usage is $0.45.

    $100 a month.

    Higher chat limits than Plus. Ultrafast is not included on Pro 100.

    Price source

  • The API is cheaper than ChatGPT Pro 200 by about $199.55 a month

    ChatGPT Pro 200 is $200.00 a month. This API usage is $0.45.

    $200 a month.

    More chat usage than Pro 100. Ultrafast is not included.

    Price source

  • The API is cheaper than ChatGPT Pro 500 by about $499.55 a month

    ChatGPT Pro 500 is $500.00 a month. This API usage is $0.45.

    $500 a month.

    The Pro tier that includes Ultrafast.

    Price source
Is a chat subscription the same product as the API?

No. A ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or X plan is a consumer subscription with its own limits. An API key is billed per token. A cheaper subscription does not mean the plan will accept the same volume of calls you typed in here, and API spend does not turn into a chat login.

Why is there no token allowance on the plans?

The plan pages we checked do not publish a simple token allowance we could divide into a cost per token. The comparison is the monthly subscription price against the API cost of the usage you described.