OpenAI to offer ChatGPT Go free for one year in India to counter Google, Perplexity push

To capture the market share in India and counter push by rivals like Google and Perplexity, AI major OpenAI has announced that it will offer one of its chatbot plans, ChatGPT Go, free for Indian users for one year. The offer will be applicable for Indian users, who sign up during a limited promotional period, which will start on November 4, 2025. ChatGPT Go is OpenAI’s affordable India-specific plan, which offers expanded access, higher limits, and GPT-5 features at a lower price.

The company, which has not specified how long the offer will be applicable, clarified that its existing ChatGPT Go users in India are also eligible for a one-year free plan offer.

Nick Turley, vice president and head of ChatGPT, said in a statement that OpenAI has received a huge response since launching ChatGPT Go in India a few months ago, and that it's excited to see what its users will build, learn, and achieve with these tools.

Sam Altman-led AI startup had announced ChatGPT Go as one of its first geography-specific plans for its Indian users in August, with prices starting at just ₹399, the lowest-priced tier of all other ChatGPT plans.

It offers users enhanced access, such as 10x higher message limits, 10x more image generations, 10x more file uploads, and 2x longer memory compared with our free tier.

It also offers access to GPT-5, along with expanded image creation, longer memory, increased message limits, and limited deep-research capabilities. The plan was announced after it came into popular notice that OpenAI had raised the prices of its ChatGPT Plus and Pro plans in India.

India remains an integral market for OpenAI due to over 700 million users of its product in the country, which has over a billion internet subscribers. Despite a valuation of $500 billion, the U.S.-based AI behemoth is currently losing money, and India's young and vast user base offers a unique opportunity to turn a profit.

Keeping up with its India plans, OpenAI in August also opened its New Delhi office. The company's India sentiment was echoed by Co-founder Sam Altman as well, who had said that India was OpenAI's second-largest market after the U.S. However, at the same time, the company is finding it hard to increase its paid user base. The latest announcement could work well in the long run and attract more paid users for the company.

Not only for OpenAI, but India's young population offers a lot of business opportunities for other AI companies like Perplexity and Google. Like OpenAI, search engine giant Google also runs a free one-year AI Pro plan in India, though it's free for students only. Leading AI-powered search and answer engine Perplexity has also tied up with Bharti Airtel to offer a free 12-month subscription of Perplexity Pro to all its 360 million customers across mobile, broadband, and DTH services.