OpenAI's internal forecast shows a dramatic flip in consumer subscriptions: the ad-supported ChatGPT Go tier at $8/month is projected to explode from roughly 3.1 million subscribers to 112 million, while the $20/month ChatGPT Plus tier crashes from about 45 million to 9 million — an 80% drop. Go's share of subscribers jumps from 7% to 92%, while Plus plummets from 92% to 7%, largely driven by Plus users downgrading. Total consumer subscribers are expected to double to 122 million this year and hit 306 million by 2030.
The flood of users into the cheap tier has a direct consequence: ARPU gets cut in half, from about $23 per user last year to under $12 next year. OpenAI's answer? Advertising. The company projects ads will bring in about $2.4 billion this year, quadruple to nearly $11 billion next year, and reach $102 billion by 2030 — becoming the largest revenue stream at roughly 36% of total revenue. Total revenue is still expected to double to $30 billion this year and hit $284 billion by 2030.
The tricky part is the timing. OpenAI only launched its ad pilot in February, with an annualized run rate of about $100 million at the end of March – but the full-year target is already set at $2.4 billion. Meanwhile, the company already missed its internal Q1 revenue targets — and as we reported, a $600 billion compute tab that's coming due, with CFO Sarah Friar warning that growth needs to accelerate to cover those contracts. The Go tier launched in India in August and went global in January; about 90% of its weekly active users are outside the US, and most of Go's growth is expected to come from overseas.