OpenAI is quickly expanding its affordable ChatGPT Go plan, which costs less than $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 some countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Pakistan, the company allows users to pay in local currency. In other countries, users must pay in USD at a cost of around $5, with the final cost varying depending on local taxation.
ChatGPT Go offers users higher daily limits for messages, image generation, and file or image uploads per day. The plan also offers twice as much memory as the free plan, allowing for more personalized responses.
According to OpenAI, this expansion comes as the company has seen its weekly active user base in Southeast Asia grow up to four times. The plan was first launched in India in August, followed by Indonesia in September. OpenAI reports that paying subscribers in India have doubled since launch.
OpenAI competes with Google to make affordable AI chatbot subscription plans available in more regions. Google launched its similarly priced Google AI Plus plan in Indonesia in September, followed by expansion to more than 40 countries. The Plus tier gives users access to Gemini 2.5 Pro, Google’s most advanced AI model, as well as creative tools for image and video creation, including Flow (for design), Whisk (for image remixing), and Veo 3 Fast (for video creation) — as well as 200 GB of cloud storage.
This expansion comes at a pivotal time for OpenAI. At its DevDay 2025 conference this week in San Francisco, CEO Sam Altman announced that ChatGPT had reached 800 million weekly active users worldwide, up from 700 million in August. The company also unveiled a major platform shift, introducing apps that work directly within ChatGPT and transform the chatbot into an app store-like ecosystem, with partners like Spotify, DoorDash and Uber.
“The evolution that we’re trying to make over the next few years is where ChatGPT itself is more like an operating system where you can come and use applications,” ChatGPT head Nick Turley told TechCrunch of development on the edge 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 $500 billion valuation, 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, like ChatGPT Go, are seen as an important step toward profitability while expanding its global user base, particularly in high-growth markets in Asia where OpenAI and Google are aggressively competing for market share.
