{"id":614387,"date":"2025-10-15T17:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T15:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=614387"},"modified":"2025-10-15T17:47:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T15:47:02","slug":"chatgpt-rand-prices-launched-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/ai\/614387-chatgpt-rand-prices-launched-in-south-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"ChatGPT rand prices launched in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>OpenAI has launched its lower-cost ChatGPT Go service across all African countries, including local currency support in some jurisdictions, such as South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From Wednesday, 15 October 2025, South African subscribers will pay R399 per month for access to the ChatGPT Plus service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is 15% more expensive than the regular converted $20 per month price for ChatGPT Plus, excluding currency conversion fees, which is also South Africa\u2019s value-added tax (VAT) rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ChatGPT Pro is now R3,999.99 in South Africa \u2014 slightly more than 15% higher than the converted $200 price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, ChatGPT Go offers a reduced price at R149 per month, with certain ChatGPT Plus features removed from the plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>OpenAI initially launched ChatGPT Go in India as a trial before expanding the offering to Indonesia. Its expansion to Africa follows its launch in 18 Asian countries last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to OpenAI, ChatGPT Go offers several benefits over its free plan, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>10\u00d7 higher message limits with GPT-5<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>10\u00d7 more image generations per day<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>10\u00d7 more file or image uploads per day<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2\u00d7 longer memory for more personalised responses<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe launch comes as Africa continues to adopt AI at a rapid pace,\u201d said OpenAI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Notably, ChatGPT Go excludes Sora video generation and the Codex agent and offers only limited deep research functionality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMillions of people across Africa are already using ChatGPT to learn new skills, solve everyday problems and start businesses,\u201d said ChatGPT chief Nick Turley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWith ChatGPT Go, we want to make cutting-edge AI affordable and accessible \u2014 so everyone can benefit from it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the OpenAI <a href=\"https:\/\/help.openai.com\/en\/articles\/11989085-what-is-chatgpt-go\">support page<\/a> for ChatGPT Go, South Africa is one of a handful of countries that received local currency support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cChatGPT Go includes higher usage limits than the Free plan for core chat and tools. Limits may vary based on system conditions to ensure a smooth experience for all users,\u201d it states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The following table summarises how prices will change for ChatGPT users in South Africa and how the new ChatGPT Go pricing compares to Plus and Pro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><div class=\"table-responsive\"><table class=\"table\" class=\"has-fixed-layout\"><thead><tr><th>ChatGPT Plan<\/th><th>South African price<\/th><th>U.S. price<\/th><th>Difference<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>Free<\/td><td>\u2014<\/td><td>\u2014<\/td><td>\u2014<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Go<\/td><td>R149<\/td><td>$4 (R69)<\/td><td>115.94% *<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Plus<\/td><td>R399<\/td><td>$20 (R347)<\/td><td>14.99%<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Pro<\/td><td>R3,999.99<\/td><td>$200 (R3,467)<\/td><td>15.37%<\/td><\/tr><tr><td colspan=\"4\"><em>* According to ChatGPT\u2019s support pages, despite dollar pricing being available for it, ChatGPT Go is not available in the United States.<\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">GPT-5 and Sora 2<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>OpenAI recently announced its GPT-5 and Sora 2 models. GPT-5 is its latest large language model, announced in August, and Sora 2 is its video generation model, launched at the end of September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>GPT\u20115 is available to all users, with Plus subscribers getting more usage, and Pro subscribers getting access to GPT\u20115 Pro, a version with extended reasoning promising more comprehensive and accurate answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cGPT\u20115 is a unified system with a smart, efficient model that answers most questions, and a deeper reasoning model (GPT\u20115 thinking) for harder problems,\u201d OpenAI said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt also has a real\u2011time router that quickly decides which to use based on conversation type, complexity, tool needs, and your explicit intent, for example, if you say \u2018think hard about this\u2019 in the prompt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>OpenAI said that the router is continuously trained on real signals, including when users switch models, preference rates for responses, and measured correctness, improving over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOnce usage limits are reached, a mini version of each model handles remaining queries. In the near future, we plan to integrate these capabilities into a single model,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At launch, many users reported that GPT-5 was not performing well and giving poor answers to queries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>OpenAI CEO Sam Altman explained at the time that an issue with the router was causing queries to be directed to the wrong model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On 30 September 2025, OpenAI announced Sora 2 and its new Sora app. Although officially only available in North America, MyBroadband gained access to the platform and <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/ai\/614326-we-used-sora-2-to-make-videos-of-famous-south-africans-and-got-interesting-results.html\">tested its capabilities<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur latest video generation model is more physically accurate, realistic, and more controllable than prior systems. It also features synchronised dialogue and sound effects,\u201d Open AI said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OpenAI has launched its lower-cost ChatGPT Go service across all African countries, including local currency support in some jurisdictions, including South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":614388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92837],"tags":[83065,101841,101840,45266],"class_list":["post-614387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","tag-chatgpt","tag-chatgpt-go","tag-nick-turnley","tag-openai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614387"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614387"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614391,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614387\/revisions\/614391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}