OpenAI is rapidly expanding its affordable ChatGPT Go plan to 16 new countries across Asia. The subscription tier, which costs under five dollars, is now available in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, East Timor, and Vietnam.
In select countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Pakistan, the company is allowing users to pay in local currencies. For the remaining countries, users must pay in US dollars at a price of approximately five dollars, with the final cost varying based on local taxation.
The ChatGPT Go plan provides users with higher daily limits for messages, image generation, and file or image uploads. It also offers twice as much memory as the free plan, which enables more personalized responses from the AI.
According to OpenAI, this expansion follows a period of significant growth, with the company’s weekly active user base in Southeast Asia growing by up to four times. The plan was first launched in India in August, followed by Indonesia in September. OpenAI reports that paid subscribers in India have doubled since the launch.
This move is part of a competitive landscape where OpenAI is competing 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 an expansion to over 40 countries. The Google Plus tier gives users access to the Gemini 2.5 Pro model, creative tools for image and video creation, and cloud storage.
The expansion arrives at a pivotal moment for OpenAI. At its recent DevDay conference, 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 shift, introducing apps that work directly inside ChatGPT. This transforms the chatbot into an ecosystem similar to an app store, with partners like Spotify, Zillow, and Coursera. A company executive described the vision as making ChatGPT more like an operating system where users can come and use various applications for different tasks.
Despite OpenAI’s rapid growth and recent 500 billion dollar valuation, the company reported a 7.8 billion dollar operating loss in the first half of 2025. This is due to heavy spending on AI infrastructure. Affordable subscription tiers like ChatGPT Go are seen as an important step toward achieving profitability while expanding the global user base, particularly in high-growth markets across Asia where both OpenAI and Google are aggressively competing for market share.