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These numbers are off. > $20/month ChatGPT Pro user: Heavy daily usage but token-limited ChatGPT Pro is $200/month and Sam Altman already admitted that OpenAI

These numbers are off. > $20/month ChatGPT Pro user: Heavy daily usage but token-limited ChatGPT Pro is $200/month and Sam Altman already admitted that OpenAI is losing money from Pro subscriptions in January 2025: "insane thing: we are currently losing money on openai pro subscriptions! people use it much more than we expected." - Sam Altman, January 6, 2025 https://xcancel.com/sama/status/1876104315296968813 https://xcancel.com/sama/status/1876104315296968813

mvieira38 1y ago
Doesn't he have an incentive to make it look like that, though? The way he phrased it, that they are losing money because people use it so much, makes it seem like Pro subscribers are some super power-users. As long as inference has a nonnegative, nonzero cost, then this case will lose money, so Sam isn't admitting that the business model is flawed or anything
AstroBen 1y ago
I just straight up don't trust him Saying that is the equivalent of him saying "our product is really valuable! use it!"
- GoatInGrey 1y ago
  That is my interpretation, that it's a marketing attempt. A form of "The value of our product is so good that it's losing us money. It's practically the Costco hotdog combo!".
- benzible 1y ago
  There's the usual issue of a CEO "talking their book" but there's also the fact that Sam has a rich, documented history of lying. That was the central issue of his firing. "Empire of AI" has a detailed account of this. He would outright tell board member A that "board member B said X", based on his knowledge of the social dynamics of the board he assumed that A and B would never talk. But they eventually figured it out, it unraveled, and they confronted him in a group. Specifically, when they confronted him about telling Ilya Sutskever that Tasha McCauley said Helen Toner should step off the board, McCauley said "I never said that" and Altman was at a loss for words for a minute before finally mumbling "Well, I thought you could have said that. I don't know."
Topfi 1y ago
That doesn't seem compatible with what he stated more recently: > We're profitable on inference. If we didn't pay for training, we'd be a very profitable company. Source: https://www.axios.com/2025/08/15/sam-altman-gpt5-launch-chatgpt-future https://www.axios.com/2025/08/15/sam-altman-gpt5-launch-chat... His possible incentives and the fact OpenAI isn't a public company simply make it hard for us to gauge which of these statements is closer to the truth.
- re-thc 1y ago
  > That doesn't seem compatible with what he stated more recently: Profitable on inference doesn't mean they aren't losing money on pro plans. What's not compatible? The API requests are likely making more money.
  - gitremote 1y ago
    Yes, API pricing is usage based, but ChatGPT Pro pricing is a flat rate for a time period. The question is then whether SaaS companies paying for GPT API pricing are profitable if they charge their users a flat rate for a time period. If their users trigger inference too much, they would also lose money.
- WesolyKubeczek 1y ago
  This can be true if you assume that there exists a high number of $20 subscribers who don't use the product that much, but $200 subscribers squeeze every last bit and then some more. The balance could be still positive, but if you look at the power users alone, they might cost more than they pay.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    They might even have decided “hey, these power users are willing to try and tells us what LLMs are useful for, and are even willing to pay us for the opportunity!”
- CjHuber 1y ago
  Does anybody really think in this current time that what a CEO says has anything to do with reality and not just with hyping up ala elon recipe
martinald 1y ago
Apologies, should be Plus. I'll update the article later.
chairhairair 1y ago
Anyone paying attention should have zero trust in what Sam Altman says.
- simianwords 1y ago
  What do you think his strategy is? He has to make money at some point. I don’t buy the logic that he will “scam” his investors and run away at some point.
  - achenet 1y ago
    He makes money by convincing people to buy OpenAI stock. If OpenAI goes down tomorrow, he will be just fine. His incentive is to sell the stock, not actually build and run a profitable business. Look at Adam Neumann as an example of how to lose billions of investor dollars and still walk out of the ensuing crash with over a billion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Neumann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Neumann His strategy is to sell OpenAI stock like it was Bitcoin in 2020, and if for some reason the market decides that maybe a company that loses large amounts of cash isn't actually a good investment... he'll be fine, he's had plenty of time to turn some of his stock into money :)
    - simianwords 1y ago
      Why not build a profitable business like Zucc, Bill gates, Jensen, Sergey etc? These people are way richer much more powerful.
      - achenet 1y ago
        I believe, but have no proof, that the answer is "because it's easier to sell stock in an unprofitable business than build a profitable one", although given the other comment, there's a good chance I'm wrong about this :)
    - Tossrock 1y ago
      Altman doesn't have any stock. He's playing a game at a level people caught up on "capitalism bad" can't even conceptualize.
hirako2000 1y ago
Trusting the man about costs would be even more misplaced than trusting an oil company's CEO about the environment.
davedx 1y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45053741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45053741 > The most likely situation is a power law curve where the vast majority of users don't use it much at all and the top 10% of users account for 90% of the usage. That'll be the Pro users. My wife uses her regular sub very lightly, most people will be like her...
johnsmith1840 1y ago
Losing money on o1-pro. That makes sense and also why they axed that entire class of models. Every o1-pro and o1-preview inference was a normal inference times how many replica paths they made.
skybrian 1y ago
That's interesting but it doesn't mean they're losing money on the $20/month users. The Pro plan selects for heavy-usage enthusiasts.

mvieira38 1y ago

Doesn't he have an incentive to make it look like that, though? The way he phrased it, that they are losing money because people use it so much, makes it seem like Pro subscribers are some super power-users. As long as inference has a nonnegative, nonzero cost, then this case will lose money, so Sam isn't admitting that the business model is flawed or anything

AstroBen 1y ago

I just straight up don't trust him Saying that is the equivalent of him saying "our product is really valuable! use it!"

GoatInGrey 1y ago
That is my interpretation, that it's a marketing attempt. A form of "The value of our product is so good that it's losing us money. It's practically the Costco hotdog combo!".
benzible 1y ago
There's the usual issue of a CEO "talking their book" but there's also the fact that Sam has a rich, documented history of lying. That was the central issue of his firing. "Empire of AI" has a detailed account of this. He would outright tell board member A that "board member B said X", based on his knowledge of the social dynamics of the board he assumed that A and B would never talk. But they eventually figured it out, it unraveled, and they confronted him in a group. Specifically, when they confronted him about telling Ilya Sutskever that Tasha McCauley said Helen Toner should step off the board, McCauley said "I never said that" and Altman was at a loss for words for a minute before finally mumbling "Well, I thought you could have said that. I don't know."

Topfi 1y ago

That doesn't seem compatible with what he stated more recently: > We're profitable on inference. If we didn't pay for training, we'd be a very profitable company. Source: https://www.axios.com/2025/08/15/sam-altman-gpt5-launch-chatgpt-future https://www.axios.com/2025/08/15/sam-altman-gpt5-launch-chat... His possible incentives and the fact OpenAI isn't a public company simply make it hard for us to gauge which of these statements is closer to the truth.

re-thc 1y ago
> That doesn't seem compatible with what he stated more recently: Profitable on inference doesn't mean they aren't losing money on pro plans. What's not compatible? The API requests are likely making more money.
- gitremote 1y ago
  Yes, API pricing is usage based, but ChatGPT Pro pricing is a flat rate for a time period. The question is then whether SaaS companies paying for GPT API pricing are profitable if they charge their users a flat rate for a time period. If their users trigger inference too much, they would also lose money.
WesolyKubeczek 1y ago
This can be true if you assume that there exists a high number of $20 subscribers who don't use the product that much, but $200 subscribers squeeze every last bit and then some more. The balance could be still positive, but if you look at the power users alone, they might cost more than they pay.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  They might even have decided “hey, these power users are willing to try and tells us what LLMs are useful for, and are even willing to pay us for the opportunity!”
CjHuber 1y ago
Does anybody really think in this current time that what a CEO says has anything to do with reality and not just with hyping up ala elon recipe

martinald 1y ago

Apologies, should be Plus. I'll update the article later.

chairhairair 1y ago

Anyone paying attention should have zero trust in what Sam Altman says.

simianwords 1y ago
What do you think his strategy is? He has to make money at some point. I don’t buy the logic that he will “scam” his investors and run away at some point.
- achenet 1y ago
  He makes money by convincing people to buy OpenAI stock. If OpenAI goes down tomorrow, he will be just fine. His incentive is to sell the stock, not actually build and run a profitable business. Look at Adam Neumann as an example of how to lose billions of investor dollars and still walk out of the ensuing crash with over a billion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Neumann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Neumann His strategy is to sell OpenAI stock like it was Bitcoin in 2020, and if for some reason the market decides that maybe a company that loses large amounts of cash isn't actually a good investment... he'll be fine, he's had plenty of time to turn some of his stock into money :)
  - simianwords 1y ago
    Why not build a profitable business like Zucc, Bill gates, Jensen, Sergey etc? These people are way richer much more powerful.
    - achenet 1y ago
      I believe, but have no proof, that the answer is "because it's easier to sell stock in an unprofitable business than build a profitable one", although given the other comment, there's a good chance I'm wrong about this :)
  - Tossrock 1y ago
    Altman doesn't have any stock. He's playing a game at a level people caught up on "capitalism bad" can't even conceptualize.

hirako2000 1y ago

Trusting the man about costs would be even more misplaced than trusting an oil company's CEO about the environment.

davedx 1y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45053741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45053741 > The most likely situation is a power law curve where the vast majority of users don't use it much at all and the top 10% of users account for 90% of the usage. That'll be the Pro users. My wife uses her regular sub very lightly, most people will be like her...

johnsmith1840 1y ago

Losing money on o1-pro. That makes sense and also why they axed that entire class of models. Every o1-pro and o1-preview inference was a normal inference times how many replica paths they made.

skybrian 1y ago

That's interesting but it doesn't mean they're losing money on the $20/month users. The Pro plan selects for heavy-usage enthusiasts.