“Eager math-knowers in the audience will also realize that, if we assume a $5-a-month subscription cost, even if OpenAI succeeds in what would be the single-largest user acquisition campaign in history, it would still be $155 million short.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
Assuming a $5-a-month subscription price, even if OpenAI succeeds in growing ChatGPT Go to its projected subscriber count (which he calls what would be the single-largest user acquisition campaign in history), the new Go revenue would still be $155 million short of the ChatGPT Plus revenue lost.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Ed Zitron wrote it
Where's Your Ed At, OpenAI Projects ChatGPT Plus subscriptions to drop by 80% from 44 Million in 2025 to 9 Million In 2026, Made Up Using Cheaper Subscriptions (Somehow), paragraph 6.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment wyea-openai-projects-chatgpt-plus-subscriptions-to-drop-by-80-from-f82e02979571-1d4f16-a1
We recorded 4 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-28. The source may have been edited after 2026-04-28. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
Conditions
- if we assume a $5-a-month subscription cost (qualifier, stated by the speaker)
- even if OpenAI succeeds in its ChatGPT Go subscriber growth (qualifier, stated by the speaker)
From the speaker
- if we assume a $5-a-month subscription cost
- even if OpenAI succeeds
- $155 million short
Our interpretation
- This is a calculation about the reported scenario, not a forecast requiring subscriber growth to occur before the arithmetic can be assessed.
- The ordinary unit is USD per month because both subscription prices are monthly.
- Compare the lost gross monthly Plus subscription receipts with the additional gross monthly Go subscription receipts, using the stated 2025 and 2026 subscriber counts.
- Exclude advertising, other products, operating costs, discounts, taxes and the timing of subscriptions within the year.
- The historical-largest acquisition-campaign aside is not established by this calculation and receives no endorsement.
- The observation period concerns the scenario reported by the post date; the financial comparison itself is between the stated 2025 and 2026 subscriber levels.
Counts as supported if: The reported scenario establishes Plus counts of 44 million and 9 million and Go counts of 3 million and 112 million; at USD 20 and the assumed USD 5 per month, respectively, the difference in incremental gross monthly subscription receipts is USD 155 million.
Counts as contradicted if: Verified inputs for the same reported scenario, evaluated on the same monthly subscription-only basis, produce a materially different gap. Advertising revenue or a different assumed Go price does not contradict this conditional calculation.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
The arithmetic checks out: losing 35 million Plus subscriptions at $20 costs $700 million per month, while adding 109 million Go subscriptions at the assumed $5 adds $545 million, leaving $155 million. That is a calculation on the supplied premises. The original subscriber projections could not be verified through readable, sufficiently authoritative evidence, so the projection-based financial claim remains unresolved under the evidence rules. This does not identify a mathematical error.
Limitations
- The monthly gap is not a realized annual revenue loss or a measure of profitability.
- The result excludes advertising and assumes every incremental Go subscription pays USD 5.
- The acquisition-campaign superlative is unverified.
Evidence (1 item)
Context only: OpenAI,
$20 USD/month
Why it matters here: OpenAI confirms the USD 20 monthly Plus list price. The attached calculation uses the supplied subscriber counts as unverified scenario premises; the company announcement does not establish those counts or the resulting shortfall.
- Publisher
- OpenAI
- Kind of source
- Company disclosure: the company describing itself, not an independent finding
- Measures
- OpenAI, ChatGPT Plus monthly list subscription price, USD USD per subscription per month, company reported, 2026-01-16 to 2026-01-16
- Arithmetic
- (44 - 9) * 20 - (112 - 3) * 5 = 700 - 545 = 155 million USD per month (inputs: Supplied scenario premise: 44 million Plus subscribers in 2025; Supplied scenario premise: 9 million Plus subscribers in 2026; Supplied scenario premise: 3 million Go subscribers in 2025; Supplied scenario premise: 112 million Go subscribers in 2026; USD 20 per Plus subscription per month, corroborated by OpenAI; Explicit hypothetical assumption: USD 5 per Go subscription per month; Exact arithmetic on the supplied rounded subscriber counts; no further rounding.)
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
Readable original reporting or authenticated forecast records confirming the four subscriber counts would establish the numerical claim on its stated assumptions.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Where's Your Ed At, OpenAI Projects ChatGPT Plus subscriptions to drop by 80% from 44 Million in 2025 to 9 Million In 2026, Made Up Using Cheaper Subscriptions (Somehow)
Eager math-knowers in the audience will also realize that, if we assume a $5-a-month subscription cost, even if OpenAI succeeds in what would be the single-largest user acquisition campaign in history, it would still be $155 million short.
- Where
- paragraph 6
- Published
- 2026-04-28
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment wyea-openai-projects-chatgpt-plus-subscriptions-to-drop-by-80-from-f82e02979571-1d4f16-a1: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.
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