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ChatGPT in 2025: A Comparative Analysis of the Free and Paid Versions
With revolutionary updates from OpenAI, the increasing aptness of the free version of ChatGPT is overwhelmingly tangible. It has transformed from GPT-3.5 to an assortment of highly-sophisticated models, making it viable to freelancers and small business owners. Newly rolled out features include custom instructions, memory settings, local maps, and enhanced search capabilities. Users can now flexibly turn off model training, which was not an option initially.
The Importance of Caution in AI Use
The advances in the AI industry are not without their pitfalls. The earlier versions of ChatGPT, especially the 3.5 edition, posed accuracy issues or "hallucinations". It is, therefore, essential that users navigate these tools with understanding, not just copying and pasting outputs. In particular, indiscriminate use of free versions could lead to inadvertent drawbacks.
Comparing ChatGPT AI Models
Various alternatives to large language models keep emerging, such as Anthropics' Claude, Google's Gemini, Meta Lama, and Microsoft's Copilot. However, even with a strategic shift to device control and search engine alternatives, OpenAI's ChatGPT remains at the forefront. Free users currently have limited access to GPT-4, one of the most advanced large language models.
Even as OpenAI grapples with this competition, much emphasis is being placed on data security for large language models. Meanwhile, companies such as Microsoft have launched new divisions like CoreAI to create AI applications and agents that seamlessly integrate into daily workflows.
Usage Plans of ChatGPT and Its Alternatives
ChatGPT comes in two primary plans; free and Plus paid with varying features. Extended use of these plans can be enjoyed across diverse platforms, such as Po, U.com, Typing Mind, and arguably several others projected to rise.
However, some features only exist within the paid version, including the essential "work with apps" feature. Different platforms may come with certain limitations such as context window size, thus affecting extensive tasks like literature reviews. Interestingly though, Google's free version provides a larger context window, translating to better data handling.
Considering Paid ChatGPT Plans for Business Use
Despite the significant improvements in the free version of ChatGPT, the Plus paid plans are noteworthy for their enhanced features and greater reliability. These advantages make them particularly valuable for business applications, making it a worthy investment. In addition, plus users have more advanced features access, including ChatGPT's search features that offer immense flexibility in business tracking activities in chat.
The Future of AI and Your Role
Embracing AI tools, especially the paid versions, proves beneficial for anyone seeking substantial growth in their business or career. Adaptation to these tools provides invaluable support in navigating the accelerating pace of change in today's digital environment.
Therefore, it's crucial to stay updated on the transformations in the global AI scene in order to leverage the emerging innovations. Be part of the extensive episodes series starting on January 20th, to gain insights from industry experts and predictions for the future of generative AI.
Will you be the driver or just a passenger in the AI revolution? Sign up for competitive AI insight newsletters and engage actively with the content. Future success in the AI field could start with a simple step today. Navigate to everydayai.com and get started!
In Conclusion
The free version of ChatGPT has significantly improved, but the paid version still offers significant advantages, particularly for business use. Experts recommend that while free AI tools can be used, it is wise not to rely heavily on them. Instead, invest in the paid versions for better return on investment.
Topics Covered in This Episode
1. ChatGPT Features and Plans
2. Alternatives to ChatGPT
3. Shift in OpenAI's Goals
4. Updates from OpenAI
5. Model Usage and Limits
6. ChatGPT Advice and Recommendations
Podcast Transcript
Jordan Wilson [00:00:02]:
In the past, I think I said don't touch the free version of ChatGPT with a 10 foot pole because the free version of ChatGPT has been historically bad. Right? Way more hallucinations, hardly no features, but that's changed. It's 2025 now. And with a lot of the updates that OpenAI announced, at its 12 days of ship miss in December, there's a lot of pretty sizable improvements at that time to the free version of ChatGPT. So today, we're gonna be doing kind of the 2025 update and comparing the free version of ChatGPT versus the paid version, and I'll answer that question again at the very end. Should you use the free version of ChatGPT? Alright. I'm excited to talk today. I hope you are too on everyday AI.
Jordan Wilson [00:01:02]:
What's going on y'all? My name is Jordan Wilson, and welcome. This thing is for you. This is your daily livestream podcast and free daily newsletter helping us all not just understand what's going on in the world of AI, but how we can use it to take take it to our advantage, grow your company, grow your career. So if you want to be the smartest person in AI at your company, in your department, this is your new home. Alright? So also your new home is your everydayai.com. That is our website. It is a legit wealth of free information. I've interviewed 100 of the leading experts in the world on AI as well as everyday enterprise business leaders who are pushing AI forward.
Jordan Wilson [00:01:40]:
All the secrets, whatever you're trying to know, probably on it already on our website sorted by category. Go find what you need. Alright. And there you can sign up for the free daily newsletter. We're gonna be recapping today's podcast as well as keeping you up to date with every other thing you need to know. So, yeah, we do this literally Monday through Friday, and then everything goes and it lives on our website there. Alright. And a quick reminder, January 20th, write that date down.
Jordan Wilson [00:02:06]:
That's Monday. Next week, we are kicking off a special series. Five episodes, Monday through Friday. I've literally spent, dozens of hours on this over the last, couple of months. Putting this together are not just 2025 AI predictions, but a road map on how you can actually take advantage of all of these. So, make sure you join us Monday through Friday next week. Special series coming at you. A lot of work has gone into this.
Jordan Wilson [00:02:35]:
Like I said, I'm lucky enough to get to talk to the smartest people in the world on AI, so sharing everything you need to know to get ahead for 2025 in that series. Alright. Before we get started, going over not just the basics of the free version of ChatGPT versus the paid version and some new updates. Let's first start as we always do with going over the AI news. So US president Joe Biden has just signed an executive order to accelerate AI infrastructure development in the US. So Biden's new executive order aims to rapidly advance the infrastructure necessary for AI operations in the US. So the executive order directs federal agents to expedite the development of large scale AI infrastructure, including data centers and clean power facilities. So Biden emphasized the importance of responsible AI use, noting its potential benefits for national security and public health.
Jordan Wilson [00:03:30]:
So the Department of Defense and Energy will identify at least 3 federal sites for private sector AI data centers fostering competition among companies. Developers will be required to cover the construction costs and ensure sufficient clean energy generation to meet the energy demands of their data centers. So the administration aims to prevent increased electricity prices for consumers by mandating that developers pay for all operational costs associated with AI infrastructure. So public labor agreements will govern the construction of these facilities, and some sites will be designated for small and medium sized AI companies. The interior department will identify suitable lands for clean energy developments to support AI data centers. The goal is by 2028, leading AI developers are expected to require data centers. Sorry. Not the goal, but this is what's happening.
Jordan Wilson [00:04:23]:
By 2028, leading AI developers are expected to require data centers with up to 5 gigawatts of capacity for training advanced AI models. So the order follows the Biden administration's proposed export restrictions on AI chips, which was not met favorably, in the big tech and big AI community. Alright. Our next piece of AI news, Microsoft is launching a new AI division, CoreAI. So Microsoft is making significant strides, by establishing a new division called Core a CoreAI aimed at creating robust AI applications and agents for its customers. Alright. So, yeah, CoreAI essentially gonna be building out AI agentic tools and workflows for enterprise customers. So the CoreAI division will be led by Jay Parcay, the former engineering chief at Meta.
Jordan Wilson [00:05:19]:
Key figures from Microsoft including, Mustafa Suleiman, Scott Guthrie, Kevin Scott, Charlie Bell, etcetera. All the big names at Microsoft will collaborate with this new team. The goal of Core AI is to create an end to end copilot in AI stack that allows both first party and, get this, 3rd party customers, that's a big one there, to build and operate AI applications and agents seamlessly. So this does look like it could turn into, almost like an app store of sorts, for, anything Copilot, anything AI, anything autonomous agents. So the new platform will empower users to work with multiple agents simultaneously, enhancing productivity and user experience through an improved interface. That is a big one y'all, Essentially the 3rd party. We'll see how that rolls out. So, for more on those stories and a lot more, make sure you go to your everydayai.com.
Jordan Wilson [00:06:12]:
Sign up for that free daily newsletter. Alright. Let's get into it. And hey, live stream audience. If you didn't know podcast peeps, like, thank thank you all for listening. You can always check your show notes. There's a link in there to connect with me on on LinkedIn, email, me, the show, etcetera. But livestream audience, I wanna know what are you using for ChatGPT? Are you using the free version? Are you using, the paid version, ChatGPT plus? Maybe are you using that ChatGPT pro, the $200 a month version? What are you using? I'm always curious.
Jordan Wilson [00:06:42]:
Alright. But let's get over let's go over the basics here, y'all. And just as a little, I guess, precursor, right, before I get started, I've used all versions of ChatGPT. Right? I currently have a free account. Right? I use that so I can test things when, you know, for shows like this. But for the most part aside from that, I don't use a free account. So, I have a ChatGPT Plus account and that is $20 a month and you can have these all too. Right? Then there is a team's account as well.
Jordan Wilson [00:07:17]:
So I have the main accounts on my screen, but the team's account isn't even up there. So we're not gonna focus too much on that. And then there is a pro account. So these are all plans for individuals. Alright. The pro account, super expensive. The biggest thing that you get access to, is you get way better limits, in the pro account with, the new o one and o one pro models. I am loving o one pro by the way, But for the most part, we're just gonna be focusing, today on the difference between a free account and a ChatGPT plus account.
Jordan Wilson [00:07:50]:
I should also mention there's one more, which is kind of the, the enterprise accounts as well, which I have accounts on there as well. So, you know, when I'm coming to this, it's it's not like I'm someone that uses the free version of ChatGPT. No. I've been using ChatGPT since the day it came out. We we train large organizations on how to use ChatGPT. Right? Whether they're going from a free version to Teams or from a team's plan to an enterprise. So this is kind of like what I do, FYI. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:08:18]:
So I just wanted to start there, but I will also say the free version has changed significantly. Alright. One of the biggest things is the model it uses. So, the free version used to use the 3.5, the GPT 3.5, and for the longest time, I told people never use the free version of ChatGPT because at the time, there was way better versions or better better ways that you could use at least GPT 4 for free, like Microsoft Copilot, right, which had pretty, a pretty good free plan as well. So I've I've always said if you've listened to the show especially for a long time, you probably heard me harp on the free version of ChatGPT because for a long time, it was actually kind of dangerous to use. I think all of these, you know, and not and that's not because of anything OpenAI did or didn't do. It's because humans are lazy. Right? And they don't understand the difference.
Jordan Wilson [00:09:16]:
Right? If if if you were using back in 2023 or the early part of 2024, if you were using ChatGPT and you didn't know what you were doing and just copying and pasting things, that's when it can get dangerous because the free version, the 3.5, it's old like hallucinations much more likely. And if you didn't even know the difference, you were much more likely to just make mistakes. Alright. So the biggest thing is now the free version does have limited access to GPT 4 0. Alright. So let's just start there. In the free plan, you at least get extremely limited access to one of the most powerful large language models in the world in GPT 4 0. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:10:00]:
So let me just start because sometimes I feel bad. Right? And I'm like, I'm I'm so hard on these certain tools. But is the free version of ChatGPT still that bad? I don't think so. It's it's it's not it's not terrible. I do think there's better options, better free AI models, which I'm gonna talk about. There's even better ways to get more limits or more generous limits on GPT 4 0 for free or if you want, like, one, subscription, I think there's better options out there. But we're gonna get to all that. But right now, if you are just using ChatGPT free, it's not bad anymore as long as you know the capabilities, what it's capable of, and what it's not.
Jordan Wilson [00:10:50]:
Right? If you understand, I tell people this. I like sports. Right? Even when I was a teenager, I I coached basketball. I love I love sports. I like to think of large language models. If you think of it like sports, it's actually easy. I coach basketball. Alright? So when you think of large language models and putting them to work for your business, I tell people, you have to understand a couple of things.
Jordan Wilson [00:11:16]:
Number 1, the rules of the game. You have to understand the field or the court, and you have to understand the players. So the same thing. In this instance, the free version of ChatGPT, all of those things are changing. The game is changing. The field is changing. You you know, the field are the rules, and then the players are changing as well. And it's changed a lot in the last couple of months, especially, since some of these new updates were released to paid users.
Jordan Wilson [00:11:43]:
So now free users are getting a little taste of these as well. I think one of the reasons why now the free version of ChatGPT is actually pretty good is because OpenAI, I think, has changed their strategy. Okay. Let me explain. I think before, you know, 2 years ago, I think OpenAI was trying to compete with, Claude from Anthropic. I think they were maybe trying to compete with, you know, early versions of of Meta. I think they were trying to compete with Gemini, the model. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:12:19]:
I think OpenAI, 2 years ago, was playing the large language model game. They're not anymore. Right? They are playing the controlling your device game, which is the smart game. Alright? They have a very capable, app, which is, available for free as well. Right? A lot of the same limitations apply, FYI. Same thing. There's a desktop version. Right? You can download ChatGPT, the desktop version for PC or Mac, and that is free as well.
Jordan Wilson [00:12:50]:
That used to be paid only. Now it's free. The same limitations carry over, and we're gonna be going over those. But the rules of the game, the game itself, and the players have changed when it comes to the free version of ChatGPT. It is actually extremely capable if you only need it just here and there. But I still will make the case. I still think $20 a month for ChatGPT plus is a no brainer. Right? That is 2 coffees 2 or 3 coffees, a month and what you can get out of it.
Jordan Wilson [00:13:26]:
Right? In the in the ChatGPT plus version for $20 a month, so many times, I'll hit the enter key once. So many times a day, and I'm like, yeah. That was worth $20. Multiple times a day every single day. Because if you actually know what you're doing, large language models are a cheat code. And I do think I still think ChatGPT is by far the best large language model. Right? So if you want to use a front facing AI chat, I still think Chad GPT is the best. Google Gemini technically has the most powerful model.
Jordan Wilson [00:14:03]:
I think their go to market strategy is a little fragmented. It's not as easy to use it, but I still think ChatGPT, the paid version, is the best bargain in business. But the free version is not bad anymore. It's actually good. Alright. So let's talk about some of the new updates. So in December, it was actually Google and OpenAI going back and forth. It was chaotic to watch.
Jordan Wilson [00:14:29]:
Right? But, essentially, OpenAI released a ton of new features. And generally, those new features are for paid members only and free members don't get a taste of it. But like I said or like I started to say anyways, OpenAI used to just be competing with large language models. Now they're competing for devices. They're competing with Google. They're competing with Google search. They're competing with perplexity, even though I think perplexity is very far behind. Right? So I think OpenAI has really shifted its strategy.
Jordan Wilson [00:15:03]:
They want Google search to be a thing of the past. Right? They want to be not just an alternative to traditional search. They want to be an answers engine. They want to be a one stop shop for working with your data, and then they also wanna be that AI chatbot as well. So during the 12 days of OpenAI in December, a lot of these premium features also got rolled out to free users as well. So, let's quickly look at the differences. Alright. So if you're tuning in, FYI, or listening to the podcast and you're like, oh, I hope I hope Jordan's gonna go into ChatGPT and and run a bunch run a bunch of prompts.
Jordan Wilson [00:15:45]:
No. It's not what this is. So many people, business leaders out there are making terrible decisions for multimillion dollar organizations because they don't understand the basics. We are going over the basics today. Alright. This is school. This is AI. Someone in our livestream audience called it AI University.
Jordan Wilson [00:16:06]:
I like that. You gotta learn. Alright. This is the textbook stuff, and then you go home or go to your business and put it to use. So let's talk about free versions here. Here's what ChatGPT free does have, and a lot of this is new. It does have access to the new ChatGPT search. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:16:30]:
And there was a lot of new updates that were announced at the December event, and those are free to users to a certain extent. Keep that in mind. We're we're gonna talk about those limits. Alright. Things like local maps. Right? Very cool. That's one of the things I use Google most for. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:16:51]:
Is I wanna know things that are by me. You have that now in the free version of ChatGPT. So keep in mind, I'm not just talking the web interface. I'm talking the, you know, iOS app if you have a iPhone, Android app, if you don't, and then desktop apps as well. So ChatGPT search is included in the free version. You do now have custom instructions in memory, whereas about this time last year, you did not have that. Alright. So custom instructions in memory, things I don't use a ton.
Jordan Wilson [00:17:22]:
But if you have a very limited use case of ChatGPT or if you only use ChatGPT for certain things, custom instructions are great. Custom instructions are essentially, let's just say you are a, I don't know. You're you're in marketing for a big company and you're always writing press releases. Right? You can put that in your custom instructions. And then every single new chat that you start, it's almost like having a preemptive prompt out there. So in custom instructions, it's essentially another layer of prompt that you never have to enter, reminding ChatGPT of, you know, certain things that you put in. Memory, kind of the same, but also different. So memory chatGPT will pick up little things throughout your conversation and quote unquote remember them and then apply them, when it sees fit.
Jordan Wilson [00:18:13]:
Where custom instructions is a little different. It is a set of instructions that you essentially apply to chatGPT unilaterally. The reason why I'm not a fan of these two things is I use ChatGPT for so many different things, so I don't necessarily want that one size fits all set of instructions or memory applied to everything. Alright. Also some new updates. You can turn off model training on the free version, which when it first came out, you couldn't. Alright. That's important.
Jordan Wilson [00:18:39]:
And I think that's a smart play by OpenAI because, you know, one of the biggest keys to adoption with large language models is data. Right? And knowing it's secure, knowing it's safe. So you can turn off model training. You can use any GPTs. You can use any GPTs on a free plan again with your messaging limits. That's that's the big thing here. I should probably just mention what these limits are, but essentially, you get very limited access to GPT 4 o. Okay? That is, like I said, chat OpenAI's right now, their most powerful GPT model.
Jordan Wilson [00:19:15]:
Alright. They have the o one and, o one pro models that are more of the reasoning models. But you only get about a handful, maybe 10 messages. It's not a hard number, within a 5 5, hour window. Okay. And then after that, it's going to default to GPT 4 o Mini, which is still a very capable model. GPT 4 o Mini is still light years ahead of GPT 3.5, which again, I'd say don't touch that thing with a 10 foot pole. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:19:48]:
ChatGPT also has temporary chats. Think of that as like an incognito window, but you can still be logged in. It has access to standard voice mode, not advanced voice mode. But standard voice mode is still better than talking to something like Siri or Alexa and it's not even close. So you still have access to standard voice mode. You do have very limited file uploads, whereas before you could not upload files. And you also have canvas mode, which is huge. Free users have access to canvas mode.
Jordan Wilson [00:20:21]:
Canvas mode, I think inside of ChatGPT, we've already seen it get copied. Right? I predicted and projected that, you know, it this would be a very much copied mode and we're already seeing that. But canvas mode is essentially it's different than Claude's artifacts mode, but it's kind of like inline AI editing. Right? It's it's more working with an AI or ChatGPT throughout the course of a document. So you can go up there and, you know, let's say you have ChatGPT, you know, create a press release. Right? Generally, in a quote unquote AI chat conversation, you would just have to go through a lot of back and forth to change small things. With canvas mode, you can go up and, you know, go up halfway through. You can start typing yourself.
Jordan Wilson [00:21:03]:
You can have run natural prompts to ChatGPT. There's a nice sleek interface on the right hand side that can, you know, make it longer, shorter, change the tone, right? All with just little nice interface buttons. So it is more of an interactive, experience in working with, ChatGPT in canvas mode, but that is available to free users. Alright. But the limits are very limited. So like I said, you're probably only gonna get between, I'll say 4 to 10 messages in GPT 4 o, before you default to 4 o Mini. And then the uploads are are not good not that great either. Right? But if you only need to upload 1 or 2 docs, you're fine.
Jordan Wilson [00:21:44]:
Right? But doing some testing last night after 2 documents on my free plan, it says upgrade to chat g 50 plus or try again tomorrow after 7:0:8 PM. So what I noticed is it looks like the first time you upload a document for me was about 7:0:8 PM. I was doing some testing. I was able to upload 2 documents and then after that it looks like you have to wait a full 24 hours from when you started. So keep that in mind. If you want to do a bunch of, you know, documents and free, not not not not that good y'all. Alright. Now let's talk about some slight differences.
Jordan Wilson [00:22:19]:
We're gonna get to what the free version does not have, but there's kind of this gray area. Because right now, the free version of ChatGPT actually has DALL E. That is OpenAI's AI image generator. DALL E is not good. Right? It's not good. Let's be honest. I I've never used DALL E, like, for an actual real reason aside from maybe, you you know, showing it to you all or if someone is curious, you know, maybe I put out a couple short tutorial videos. But you can use DALL E on the free version.
Jordan Wilson [00:22:50]:
I think you only get 2 generations every 24 hours, but you cannot edit images. So if you do have the ChatGPT plus plan, there's essentially like a brush. Right? And you can highlight things and talk to DALL E and have it change it. It's not that great. I'd I'd say DALL E is probably the worst, chat ChatGPT function or feature. It's really, an update is really needed, right? I think Sora has the capabilities to produce photos, so I'm sure DALL E will get, replaced soon. Also we already talked about the very limited number of messages you get with GPT 4 o. Another big difference here is the context window.
Jordan Wilson [00:23:33]:
Right. So if you think, oh, okay. Well, I can't upload a bunch of documents, but I still wanna use the free version of ChatGPT. Well, you only have about 8 k token input. Right? That's about think about 10 pages of text. Right? Which might might seem like a lot, but it's actually not if you are a power user. And ChatGPT is gonna start to forget things much quicker. I've done a lot of tests on that, on the show, of that exact same thing, but its memory is going to forget things.
Jordan Wilson [00:24:02]:
Right? So if you're starting out in the free version of ChatGPT and you do a couple messages and you're like, oh, this is great. And you share some information with ChatGPT in the context window or in the chat. Right? And then, I don't know, 2 or 3 messages later, you're like, wait. This thing already forgot. That's because it's very limited in what it can remember at any one given time. Right? So it's only 8 k token, which is not a lot of words. But for the paid plan, it's 32,000, tokens. So 32,000 tokens is about 27, 28,000 words just for context.
Jordan Wilson [00:24:39]:
So the, 8 k token for free, it's about 6,000 words, 64,000 or sorry. 64100. Either 6,000, 64100, something like that. And then canvas. So, yes, although you do have canvas mode for free in ChatGPT, you can't use GPTs in canvas mode. You can use GPTs, but not in canvas mode. And also you cannot execute Python code in canvas mode, something you can do, or you can't execute any code. I know ChatGPT is has already started to roll out in beta, new types of code that you can execute within the canvas window.
Jordan Wilson [00:25:19]:
So similarly, to Claude artifacts where you can execute anything. Right? You can't really do too much in canvas mode. Samuel here says, DALL E is truly bad. Yeah. Let me know. And, hey, live stream audience. If you do have, questions, please please let me know as we go along. I'll try to answer them if I see any.
Jordan Wilson [00:25:44]:
Alright. I'm I'm gonna get to the questions at the end because I'm actually gonna tackle, right away some of the most common questions people have between the free and the Chatti BT Plus, and I will tackle any questions that you all have at the end as well. So if you do have any, make sure to get them in now. It doesn't even have to be very specifically about the differences between, you know, ChatGPT free and plus or, you know, plus and pro, the 200. Right? Whatever your ChatGPT question is, get them in. I'm gonna try to get them, at the end of the show. Alright. So we talked about the similarities.
Jordan Wilson [00:26:20]:
Yes. ChatGPT free does have these more quote, unquote premium features. Now we just talked about some of these slight differences. So there's kind of this gray area where it's like, oh, ChatGPT free has this, but, so now let's just talk about what it does not have. So you do not have advanced voice mode in the free plan. You have standard voice mode, which, like I said, again, it's at least better than Siri or Alexa. But advanced voice mode is amazing. It is, for those of you that saw our, you know, top AI tools of 2024, it was one of our top.
Jordan Wilson [00:26:58]:
It was, I I think, one of our top 3, you know, tools or features or, of the entire year. Advanced voice mode, amazing. So you don't have o one or o one minutei. Not even the taste. You don't even get one. Right? So that is the reasoners. So again, I like to tell people when you think of large language models, this is important because all of the big large language model makers are coming out with these reasoning models. It's different.
Jordan Wilson [00:27:24]:
So I like to say think of your transformer type models. That's your traditional, you know, your your Claude 35 SONET, your Gemini 2, your, GPT 4 o. And then you have your recenter models. These are models that think a little differently, much more kind of compute is needed. It kind of does a little bit of, you know, chain of thought thinking before it responds to you. So, in the $20 a month plan, ChatGPT Plus, you do get pretty good limits on o one and o one minutei. You don't get o one pro on that. You gotta have that expensive $200 a month pro plan.
Jordan Wilson [00:28:00]:
Alright. On the free version, you cannot build GPTs. You can use any GPTs. You cannot build any. However, once you have shared access so I know a lot of people, you know, they'll just do, who just want GPT access and they really need some specific ones. I know people that will just, you know, buy a subscription for a month or 2, then share that, or, you know, make sure that they can use that once their subscription's done. You can do that. So, you know, even custom GPTs, whatever it is, you can continue to use those on a free account.
Jordan Wilson [00:28:39]:
Other things you don't have, Sora. Right? OpenAI's, which is technically the best AI video tool that's available to the public. Right? Because Google VO 2 is by far better, but it's like, I don't know, like 0.01% of the people that want to use it can actually use it right now. But, sorta, you do get access to that on the normal $20 a month plan. You get zero access on the ChatGPT free, ChatGPT free plan. So you can access either of those inside, ChatGPT. Although I do think in the future, OpenAI will have that capability. Right now, you have to go to soara.com.
Jordan Wilson [00:29:18]:
But if you think, oh, okay. Well, I get some sorta with no. You you you get nothing. You get nothing for the AI video and then also Teams. Right? So a lot of people think, oh, I'm gonna create a team. I think there's a lot of great team features and functionalities out there for ChatGPT, but every single person on your team has to be on a team's plan. That's something not a lot of people get right. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:29:47]:
So now let's tackle some of the most common questions. Alright. So now listen in because if if your organization hasn't fully implemented generative AI, which I'm sure many of you either have or your companies are on the fence, these are the questions that are always gonna come up about the free version of ChatGPT. So here's the answers. Right? I'm just gonna give it to you quick. No nonsense. Here we go. So is there a free version of ChatGPT? Yes.
Jordan Wilson [00:30:18]:
Obviously. There is. Right? And the free version, like I said, is actually pretty good now. But like we just covered, there's a ton of differences between the free version of ChatGPT and the paid version, ChatGPT Plus. And there is no legal free way to get a free, copy or a free version, right, of ChatGPT plus. So there is no free ChatGPT plus, although the free ChatGPT plan has really improved in quality and features. Another thing to keep in mind, you do not even need an account to use ChatGPT for free. So like I said, ChatGPT and and OpenAI, they really are trying to be more of like a search engine.
Jordan Wilson [00:31:05]:
Right? So even if you are not logged in, you don't even need to count. You can go use ChatGPT for free. In that instance, you are only getting 4 o Mini. And, you know, all a lot of these other features that we talked about, you know, attaching files and ChatGPT search, not technically available. Right? But you don't even have to be logged in to use at least the basics of ChatGPT. But with the free account, you do obviously get a lot of those features. But there is no free version of ChatGPT plus. But yes, there is a free version of ChatGPT.
Jordan Wilson [00:31:39]:
So how many times can you use ChatGPT for free? There's actually not a set number. Right? Kinda weird. Usually, like I said, it's between about, 4 to 10 messages over about a 5 hour period. So not a ton. And then after that, you don't get locked out. All that happens is you can still work, but you just get kind of, downgraded from the GPT 4 o model to 4 o Mini. So there's no set number of times that you can use, you know, GPT 4 o on a free plan, but it's it's it's pretty limited. Right? And especially if you're doing some proper prompting, it's gonna go pretty quick.
Jordan Wilson [00:32:20]:
Alright. So, next common question. Can you talk to ChatGPT for free? Yeah. You can. Right. You can on desktop. You can on mobile. You can on the web interface.
Jordan Wilson [00:32:33]:
But it is the standard, voice mode. It is not the advanced voice mode, but still very cool. Right? And to tell you the truth, I don't hate I don't hate the standard voice mode. Right? Especially if you're someone like myself that still tries to use Siri and Alexa every single day, and it's mind numbingly painful. Right? So the standard voice mode, it's free. It's not even that bad. So if you haven't used it, I actually recommend. Right? So it the, advanced voice mode and all of those cool features.
Jordan Wilson [00:33:09]:
Right? You can chat with video. You can show it. You know, I I I do that all the time when a little thing around the house is is broken or missing or I'm like, what what's this? Right? Because I don't know. A a screwdriver from a from a hammer. Right? So you can show video. Right? And say, hey, ChatGPT. What's this? Or this is broken. This is leaking.
Jordan Wilson [00:33:26]:
What do I do? How do I even Google this? Right? Like, what do I look up? Right? You don't have those those video or screen sharing capabilities of advanced voice mode and standard voice mode, but standard voice mode is still a, I think, an often overlooked, tool that you can use inside of ChatGPT. So how do you access ChatGPT online for free? Well, you just go to chatGPT.com. Right. There's no secret. Again, there's no pirated free sneaky workaround where you can get, like, the full GPT 4 o, ChatGPT plus for free. Nope. Not a thing. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:34:02]:
Is there a next common question. Is there a free AI better than ChatGPT? Technically, yes. Right? That goes to Google. It is much different, though. So I do think if you want the best, quote, unquote, fully free AI model, it is inside Google AI Studio. But that is the caveat. Right? Everyday AI for the most part, this is for everyday people. Google AI Studio is a little technical.
Jordan Wilson [00:34:31]:
It's technically kind of for developers, although it's not that scary once you get in and once you get started. So it's not your, you know, Google Gemini, you know, gemini.google.com where you go in there and super easy UI UX and you're just chatting. It's a little different. Right? But that is by far the best, free AI that you can use. However, keep in mind, Google AI Studio, you cannot turn off training. Right? So all the information that you upload, all the content of the conversation you're having, Google's using that data. Okay? So that's the trade off if you are using Google AI Studio, and it is better, more powerful. You have all of the newest models, inside Google AI Studio.
Jordan Wilson [00:35:17]:
So there is a 100% as of, you know, January 2025. There is a much better free AI to use than ChatGPT. Even though ChatGPT, the free version, like we talked about, you do get a nice taste of all of these different AI features, more premium, functionality. What's the best free ChatGPT? Well, it's just GPT four o. Right? I'm answering all those common questions that people are always asking. Right? What's the best free ChatGPT? Well, it's that. There are other places. So I'm gonna talk about that next.
Jordan Wilson [00:35:52]:
There's other places where you can use the GPT 4 o model for free, but most of those places you don't get these full features and functionality. And this is one of the main reasons why I used to tell people never use the free version of ChatGPT because all you had was GPT 35 and you didn't have any of these other functions, features, etcetera. Now you do. That's now why I'm like, alright. It's not that bad anymore. Alright. So is there an alternative to ChatGPT? Yes. There's literally 100.
Jordan Wilson [00:36:25]:
So it has to depend on what you're looking for. So as an example, are you looking for a completely different large language model? In which case, you know, that's easy. You can go to, Anthropics Claude. You can go to Google Gemini. You can use an open source ish, Meta Lama. There's Mistral. Right? There's obviously Microsoft Copilot. Right? There's so many kind of, quote, unquote, large language model alternatives, but there's also other ways that you can use ChatGPT.
Jordan Wilson [00:36:56]:
So there's a lot of pretty popular, destinations, across the Internet where you can still get even better, free limits on GPT 4 o. And if you do have one subscription so some people love these platforms. I'm not a big fan of them because they don't have all of the features and functionalities that you would get within the native, ChatGPT interface. But as an example, there's, Po. Right? You can use all these different models. U.com, you know, typing mine like we talked about. There's Microsoft Copilot, perplexity with perplexity, even a free perplexity plan. You get, you you know, a certain number of, you know, free, usage of these other models.
Jordan Wilson [00:37:40]:
Or sorry, of the, perplexity pro. Hugging chat. Right? So there are a lot of free places across the web that you can still use ChatGPT for free and some of the features of ChatGPT Plus for free, but not all of them. And, yes, some of these you can pay one subscription, and then you do get a decent amount of access to all these other models, right, where you can pay. You know, some of them are 10, 15, 20, $30 a month, and then you don't have to have, you know, 3, 4, 5 subscriptions. I don't personally use those a ton because even those great platforms do not have the full features and functionality of something like a ChatGPT. One other thing that I think I I missed on my list is work with apps. So that is not available in the free version of ChatGPT, and I love that.
Jordan Wilson [00:38:34]:
So on the desktop version, you know, as an example, I'm currently on a Mac, although I have my, you know, Microsoft Copilot plus PC, I still have to set up. It's been been busy around the holidays and a lot of things going on. But the work with apps is only available on the paid version. So that's on the desktop. You can connect different apps. So, you know, it could be Xcode. It could be, you know, your Apple Notes. It could be text edit.
Jordan Wilson [00:38:59]:
Right? And then ChatGPT can see all of the contents of these files without you having to go in and even scroll to them or copy and paste. So the work with apps, kind of feature is only available on the paid plan. Alright. Before I answer this final question Alright. Looks like we got a lot of Poe fans in the house. Fred says he uses Poe to try different models. Dennis says people really like you.com, but, doesn't seem like Dennis is a fan. Jackie says Poe, Poe all day.
Jordan Wilson [00:39:36]:
Alright. Let's let's go through let me quickly answer, some of these questions that we have. Alright. We'll go through quickly here because I know, you know, Fred is on the elliptical there. Some of you are walking your dog and you just wait for me. Alright. So let's go through the questions very quickly. So Joe is asking what benefits do you see of using Gemini advanced over GPT 4 0 for the API? So, yeah, when we're talking API, great question, Joe.
Jordan Wilson [00:40:05]:
Thank you for this call out. This is completely different. I'm only talking here about the front end chat. Right? So businesses that are, you know, using the API, so you can essentially, tap in and, you know, kind of use their technology and connect it with your data. So at that point, that's a whole another conversation because at in that instance, the newer Gemini models in in many use cases are going to be better than gbt4 o. But, I mean, gbt4 o, their their API, you also have access to to whisper. You have access to their, kind of their live live video, live voice API, which I think is better than Google's. So I'll have to have a dedicated show on that one, Joe.
Jordan Wilson [00:40:48]:
But, yeah, it's it's definitely different. Alright. Larry asking, are some free AIs better for some particularly task? Which is best for literature reviews? Perplexity? So for certain things, it's about the context window. Right? And right now, Google AI Studio, it's like depending on the model, it's like a 1,000,000 tokens. So is if if you're not worried if about the the the sensitivity of the data. Right? So, yeah, if you're writing a book or, you know, reviewing other pieces of literature like Larry is asking here, I would go Google AI Studio just because the free version of Chad GPT, the context window is extremely small. So it's gonna forget things pretty quickly and you can't, you know, copy and paste a bunch of information in there anyways. Fred asking how about the free version of Claude? The paid version of Claude is not even good enough for businesses to use because of the rate limits.
Jordan Wilson [00:41:45]:
So that still stands true. Yes. I know people love, you know, 3.5 new, Sonnet 3.5 new, 3.6, whatever you wanna call it. Anthropic, I think, had a terrible go to market strategy. Right? You can't use it. I've been a paid subscriber of Claude since it came out. I try to use it because I'd like to always keep up to date and give you the most up to date unbiased information from a very unbiased standpoint. Even the paid plan of Claude, you can't use it.
Jordan Wilson [00:42:16]:
The the the message limits are too too low. Literally, there's a lot of times when I go to try to use Claude, because there's certain things it's pretty good at, but the limits are so bad on the paid plan, let alone the free plan. I wouldn't I wouldn't use it. So, Saurabh Kumar. Sorry. I know I did not get your name right, Saurabh. So asking is the screen share feature available in the desktop application on Windows? So the screen share is not yet available on the desktop top version. So right now, you have work with apps, but the screen share is not yet available.
Jordan Wilson [00:42:57]:
There are some kind of shortcuts where you can essentially take a photo of your screen, very quickly and easily or any tab that you have open or any application. So not necessarily as they've demoed it. Not yet. Alright. So I think that's all of the questions. So let's wrap this one up y'all. Shall we? So should you use the free version of Chat Sheet Bites? Let me just answer the question. Probably not.
Jordan Wilson [00:43:27]:
Probably not. Because what you get with a $20 a month subscription to be honest, this show's already been 45 minutes. It's not even worth your 45 minutes. If you just invested 45 minutes to listen to me talk about the differences between free and ChatGPT plus $20 a month, I already just ate up 45 minutes of your time. Your your time is worth more than that. Right? The $20 a month, it's still the best. I like I just said, I think it's the best deal in business. Right now, at least, it's it's not worth it to use it.
Jordan Wilson [00:44:00]:
However, if you are just experimenting, if you are literally brand new, I think it's still good to use now. Right? If you're serious about using AI to grow your company, grow your career, should you use this? No. Invest the $20. But I'm not gonna tell you anymore to stay away from the free version with a 10 foot pole like I told you to in the past. Because in the past, you couldn't upload files. You couldn't access the Internet. You couldn't, have access to the latest model. Now you have all of those things.
Jordan Wilson [00:44:33]:
So in very limited use cases, the free version of ChatGPT is very capable. You can have, trust and confidence that you're going to have strong, reliable outputs. Is it better for anything than, you know, a couple minutes a day? Probably not. I still think it's worth investing in that $20 a month plan. But like we said, the free version has changed a ton over the last month or 2, and I do think it is at least safe, quote, unquote, safe to use, good to use. You can still drive a decent amount of business value out of a free plan, but I do think it is still there's still enough separation between the free plan and the paid plan that I'd say for 95% of business use cases, the free thing the free plan is still not going to cut it. I still think it is worth it to update, to the $20 a month paid plan. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:45:31]:
That's it y'all. I hope this was helpful. But like I talked about, the free version of ChatGPT has changed so much. And I know that so many people are still in this mindset of, hey, I don't need to pay for AI. It's it's so free. It's so available. But the you also have to think what the companies are trying to do. Right? And at any point, they want you using even their free tools as much as possible because the prices could go up at any time.
Jordan Wilson [00:45:56]:
Right? They might lock, you know, certain capabilities of of free, users down. So keep that in mind. I would say don't really make a free tool, in a needed piece of your day to day workflow. Right? Because it could change at any time. And like I said, I would just recommend paying for ChatGPT Plus or whatever large language model tool that you're using. Because even those that I am not huge fans of, it's still one of the best and easiest ROIs having a premium version of something like ChatGPT plus. Alright. As a reminder, January 20th, make sure to join us.
Jordan Wilson [00:46:37]:
That is all of next week. Five shows. I've spent countless hours, hundreds of interviews with experts all rolled up into 5 banger episodes. Not just predictions. Yes. These are predictions, but it's much more than that. It's laying out the road map for you and your company to succeed. There's so much happening in the world of generative AI right now.
Jordan Wilson [00:47:03]:
This is all I do. Alright. So get your get your board together. Listen to these. Talk about them. I have them kind of sorted by category. I promise you, you do not want to miss these episodes. They are going to pay off dividends for months and probably the entire year to come.
Jordan Wilson [00:47:23]:
So thank you for tuning in. Hope to see you for those shows. If you haven't already, please go to your everydayai.com. Sign up for the free daily newsletter. Thanks for tuning in. Hope to see you back tomorrow and every day for more everyday AI. Thanks y'all.