It’s interesting how credits became the default abstraction for usage but without transparent burn rates, they're just tokens of confusion.

Couldn’t agree more. UPI is the unlock, not just the price. The credit card wall has quietly excluded 90% of the country even those curious and ready to pay.

Indeed it is!!

You’re right to be cautious. Perplexity’s throttling showed how fast “democratization” can become “degradation.”

But OpenAI might be running a playbook most competitors can’t afford to match: - Lock distribution now - Trade margins for data + ubiquity - Introduce upsells / infra plays later

100%. India has ~750M+ internet users and most of them have skipped the desktop era—straight to mobile + UPI.

With ₹399 and no credit card barrier, this could be AI's “Jio moment.” Suddenly, millions of first-time payers can access GPT-5.

Imagine the ripple effects on education, vernacular content, coding bootcamps, and small-town creators.

Absolutely. Perplexity with Airtel and Gemini with Reliance already hinted that India’s AI adoption will come through distribution moats.

Yes, you can downgrade from the $20 Plus plan to ChatGPT Go. The switch takes effect at the end of the current billing cycle.

OpenAI just launched a new plan called ChatGPT Go and exclusively for India.

₹399/month (roughly $4.80), with the support of UPI payments. And this wasn't a loud rollout at all, just a quiet addition to their pricing page. Now the point is that this isn't just a discounted GPT-Plus plan but it's actually built for India's mass market. Think of the students and everyday users living beyond tier 1 cities, who've never paid for AI before but know what ChatGPT is. The highlight is that along with credit cards they have added the support of UPI which is widely accepted across the country because let's face it that not everyone owns a credit card in India.

What’s included:

- GPT-5 (with extended usage)

- Image generation

- File uploads

- Python tools, memory, custom GPTs

What’s missing:

- GPT-4o or API access

- Connectors, Sora, or enterprise features

- No annual billing or bundles

They’re clearly not targeting the English-speaking dev crowd that already uses ChatGPT. This feels more like a test run for mass-market localization at scale, with India as the first sandbox.

$20/month doesn’t work in a country where Netflix costs ₹149. But ₹399 with UPI, is an unlock.

Feels like OpenAI is prepping for the next 500 million users, not the next 500 YC-backed teams.

Docs: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/11989085-what-is-chatgpt...

Would love to hear from anyone testing the usage caps.

Appreciate it. For token-based metering, we lean on event-level tracking with strict timestamps and unique identifiers to maintain billing precision, even when upstream responses are delayed or partial. If OpenAI or similar services provide incomplete data, we flag those events for retry or exclusion to avoid corrupting aggregates.

Retroactive adjustments are handled by versioning usage records, so instead of overwriting historical events, we apply corrections as delta events. Invoices pull from the latest state, but we preserve full audit logs underneath to avoid integrity gaps.

Would love to set that up. We’ve seen LLM infra teams hit billing issues fast because of usage spikes, token metering, credit handling. It gets messy to build it in-house.

I’ll DM you, we can run a quick POC and see if it fits your setup. Appreciate the interest.

I am working on building Flexprice(https://flexprice.io/), an open source monetization platform for AI and Agentic companies.

This week, we’re doing a 5-day launch week, where we’re shipping a new set of billing features every day. Github link: https://github.com/flexprice/flexprice