OpenAI is rapidly expanding its affordable ChatGPIT Go plan, which costs less than $5, to 16 new countries across Asia. The membership level 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 like Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, and Pakistan, the company is allowing users to make payments in local currencies. In the remaining countries, users will have to pay in USD at a price of around $5, with the final cost varying depending on local taxation.
ChatGPT Go gives users higher daily limits for messages, image creation, and file or image uploads. This plan also offers twice the memory as the free plan, enabling more personalized responses.
The expansion comes as the company has seen its weekly active user base in Southeast Asia grow fourfold, according to OpenAI. The plan was first launched in India in August, followed by Indonesia in September. OpenAI reports that paying customers in India have doubled since launch.
OpenAI is competing with Google to make affordable AI chatbot subscription plans available in more regions. Google launches it at the same price Google AI Plus plan in Indonesia in SeptemberThis was followed by expansion into more than 40 countries. The Plus tier gives users access to Gemini 2.5 Pro, Google’s most advanced AI models, as well as creative tools for image and video creation – including Flow (for design), Whisk (for image remixing), and VO3 Fast (for video creation) as well as 200GB of cloud storage.
The expansion comes at a critical moment for OpenAI. At its DevDay 2025 conference in San Francisco this week, CEO Sam Altman announced that ChatGPT has reached 800 million weekly active users globally, up from 700 million in August. The company also unveiled a major platform makeover, introducing apps that work directly inside ChatGPT and that turn chatbots into an ecosystem similar to an app store, with partners like Spotify, Zillow, and Coursera. among others,
“What we’re trying to develop over the next few years is where ChatGPT itself is like an operating system where you can come in and use applications,” Nick Turley, head of ChatGPT, told TechCrunch about the development on the sidelines 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 achieving profitability while expanding its global user base, especially in high-growth markets across Asia where both OpenAI and Google are aggressively competing for market share.
