ChatGPT Pro's $200 Fee: The Ultimate “We’re Losing Money!” Flex

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Sam Altman recently tweeted that OpenAI is losing money on its $200-a-month ChatGPT Pro tier. On the surface, it’s like hearing Tesla say, “We pay you to drive our cars!” I think Sam is a messaging genius. Telling the world you’re underwater on your product can be killer marketing. It screams, “This thing is so good, and so heavily used, we literally can’t keep up!” This tweet was only exacerbated with the launch of Deep Research, an even more inference-intensive form of interaction.

So, is OpenAI actually in the red on Pro subscriptions?

• Short answer: Possibly, yes.

• Longer answer: Best estimates have o1 Pro queries at a cost to OpenAI of about a fraction of a cent each—usually enough for them to come out ahead. But throw in a minority of “super users” ripping through 20,000+ queries a month (plus “Deep Research” prompts that can cost a few bucks each), and you can blow past $200 in compute. Altman says these power users are so ravenous they’re making ChatGPT Pro unprofitable.

The Math Behind “Losing Money”

• At $0.004–$0.01 per o1 Pro query, $200 covers 20K–50K monthly queries—roughly 600–1,600 a day.

• Deep Research could easily cost $1–$4 per query. Run that 100 times a month (the current cap OpenAI sets for Deep Research), and you’re torching OpenAI’s wallet.

• Most people won’t ever get near those levels, but a handful apparently do.

The best part: admitting the money-losing scenario is a savvy trust hack. ChatGPT Pro suddenly feels like a steal, and it cements the narrative that the product is unstoppable. “Yes, we’re losing money, but we’re doing it for you!” It is a PR jackpot.

When “Losing Money” Actually Works...
Fiat’s CEO, Sergio Marchionne, stunned the industry in 2014 by begging consumers not to buy his electric car – because “every time I sell one, it costs me $14,000” in losses​. The 500e, priced around $32,500, was estimated to cost Fiat about $50,000 to manufacture, meaning each sale was deeply unprofitable. The 500e actually became a pretty popular little EV within California because buyers knew they were getting a great deal – essentially a heavily subsidized car thanks to Fiat’s losses. So despite the CEO literally discouraging sales, the 500e sold a few thousand units quickly. Fiat may have hemorrhaged cash briefly on the car, but they gained brand attention most ad dollars can’t buy. The 500e line is still being updated and sold over a decade later.

Bilt, the rewards credit card for paying your rent, launched in 2021, partnering with Wells Fargo shortly after. In 2024, The Wall Street Journal ran a piece detailing how bad this “rent on a credit card” deal might be for Wells—supposedly costing the bank $10M+ monthly! Essentially, Wells Fargo was shelling out cash so that cardholders could earn points on rent “for free.” My uninformed hypothesis? That “exposé” might’ve been deliberately fed to the press for marketing splash. After all, the more you hammer home how terrible the economics are for Wells, the more appealing the product looks to renters—and the more sign-ups Bilt racks up. Meanwhile, Wells is banking (pun intended) on young customers who’ll eventually need mortgages, checking accounts, and more.

...And When It Doesn’t
On the other hand, there are easy places to look for a crash course in how “losing money” can implode. Look no further than MoviePass. Unlimited theater tickets for $9.95 a month sounded like the mother of all bargains. People flocked to it, used it constantly, and the company blew through cash like there was no tomorrow. They spiraled into bankruptcy, proving that sometimes it’s not a cunning PR move—it’s just bad math.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT Pro probably won’t follow that path. They sit on a tidal wave of AI demand, and inference costs keep dropping. If usage gets too wild, they can raise prices or clamp down on the biggest power users. Meanwhile, telling customers, “We’re losing money on you!” transforms ChatGPT Pro into a must-have phenomenon. It’s a humblebrag that’s driving signups and loyalty in one shot.

Whether this “negative margin” is just a short-term gambit or a sustainable deal remains to be seen. If OpenAI pulls it off, it’ll be a legendary marketing move. If not…well, at least we got to feast on cheap AI while it lasted.

🤙

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