OpenAI’s “Pay As You Go” Is the Best Way to Use ChatGPT

If you’ve tried talking to ChatGPT , you may have noticed that its free website is often slow, requires frequent reloads, and relies on Cloudflare to confirm you’re really human. But contrary to what OpenAI advertises, you don’t have to pay $20/month for the paid version (ChatGPT Plus) to fix these issues. Instead, opt for the OpenAI pay-as-you-go plan, which charges based on usage rather than a monthly fee.

Buy OpenAI Pay As You Go Plan

A pay-as-you-go plan is not only more convenient, it’s also cheaper. With the latest ChatGPT 3.5 Turbo API, you get $0.002 per 1,000 tokens (one token equals roughly 0.75 words). Thus, long queries will cost you hundredths of dollars, and even with intensive use, you are counting on a couple of dollars a month. Take a look at the OpenAI pricing page to see prices for the latest models.

All you need to get started is a set of OpenAI API keys that are unique to your account. You can add this API to any 3rd party ChatGPT application and then you can communicate securely with the chatbot or let the application do its job using ChatGPT data.

Go to the OpenAI billing page and sign in to your account. Sign up for a Pay As You Go plan by adding your credit card. Once this is done, go to the Usage Limits page to create a hard limit that will stop GPT functionality if you reach a certain dollar amount. (Again, reaching this amount will probably be difficult.) But in the event that the associated ChatGPT app crashes, you won’t lose $120/month, the default usage limit. You can set any soft or hard limit here, but a $5 or $10 limit is a good idea.

When that’s done, it’s time to copy your API key. On the OpenAI platform page, go to the “API Keys” section in the sidebar. Here click Generate new secret key to generate a new unique API key. Copy this key and save it in your notes app or password manager. Be sure to do this as OpenAI will no longer let you see this key. You can, of course, delete and create new API keys.

Once you have an API key, the whole world is in your hands. You can use the key in any extension, app or website that accepts it. Once added, the application will directly connect to ChatGPT using your identity and will work reliably without the need for re-login or re-authorization.

Personally, my experience with the Glarity YouTube summary extension has skyrocketed since I added an API key. I used to have to log into OpenAI every couple of hours to re-authenticate.