We get this question all the time: Why pay $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus?
After all, ChatGPT has a free version. So do ChatGPT’s biggest competitors – Google Gemini, Meta AI and Claude. And generative AI assistants are popping up everywhere, from search to office software to social media. So is ChatGPT Plus worth it?
Our verdict: ChatGPT Plus is definitely worth it (for now). In fact, I’d say in terms of return on investment, ChatGPT Plus is the best $20 I spend each month for my company.
Claude is creative. Gemini is helpful. Meta AI is entertaining. But no AI chatbot is more useful to a small business than ChatGPT.
ChatGPT’s Plus or Team upgrades give you access to features such as image creation, custom GPTs and full access to the latest language model. Taken together, they make it well worth the investment.
If you haven’t yet upgraded to the current paid version of this powerful LLM chatbot, keep reading to learn why it’s worth the investment.
– I said “for now.” Why? ChatGPT Plus remains the industry leader for utility, pressing the advantage it established when ChatGPT3.5 was released in November 2022. I’ve been incredibly impressed by the speed, quality and inventiveness of the software upgrades its maker OpenAI has made in the past year and a half. But its competitors, which include companies with leaders such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, are investing billions (and billions) of dollars into their own chatbots. They were slightly late to the retail chatbot game, but they’re catching up. And they have massive resources and technology teams to bring to bear to this latest tech race. I’ve learned over the years to never count out Meta or Google. The race is on.
Like any tool, ChatGPT is only as effective as the skill of the person using it. The investment in ChatGPT Plus is not the $20 a month that you’ll pay for it. Most businesses can afford that. The real investment is in learning how to use the tool for maximum utility. And that will take training and hours of practice.
In other words, in order for your investment in ChatGPT Plus to make sense, you need to invest in learning how to use those advanced features. Now I realize this caveat is a tad bit self-serving: BizHack’s mission is to equip 1 million business owners with the knowledge they need to use AI marketing to grow 10x faster, and we sell courses and coaching to help business owners achieve that. But this point is heart-felt: I’ve seen too many business owners invest is a software tool (say, ClickFunnels or Hubspot) only to find that it doesn’t achieve their objectives due to poor implementation.
So, don’t bother investing in ChatGPT Plus unless you’re also ready to invest your time in learning how to use it.
ChatGPT 4o is currently the best generative AI for marketing and sales. It can help you generate marketing content, respond to customer inquiries, analyze data to improve your marketing efforts and more. All of BizHack’s training incorporates the tool, and we use it to market our business.
Why do we use ChatGPT 4o so extensively? Because ChatGPT 4o’s chatbot is more user-friendly and hallucinates less than any other AI. Its responses are also more context-aware.
In short, you and the AI will understand each other better.
In addition to expanded access to GPT4o, a paid subscription gives you a lot more options for customizing the chatbot:
● Create your own GPT, personalized with your brand voice, style, values and priorities (we have a free Masterclass on the topic on October 23, and you can register for it now!)
● Create AI-generated images
● Conduct advanced data analysis
All of these features can save you hours of work and enhance your business.
Several powerful free LLMs have emerged, the most useful of which are Google’s Gemini, Meta.ai from the makers of Facebook and Microsoft’s Copilot. There are also several useful specialized AI platforms (you can read about those in this blog post). You might find Gemini a little bit more helpful if you’re deep in the Google system, and the paid Claude AI can be more creative.
In my experience, though, ChatGPT 4o is currently the best tool for AI marketing and sales, especially when it comes to creating content. That’s why it’s indispensable to BizHack’s marketing workflow.
1. Visit ChatGPT.com and log in to your current account (or click “Sign up” if you don’t have an account).
2. Click on “Upgrade plan” in the lower left-hand corner of your screen.
3. Choose the upgrade that works for you.
4. Start messaging ChatGPT! Ask it to generate content for an email, explain something to you in plain language, generate text for a Facebook ad and more.
5. Learn more in this step-by-step video demonstration: How to Get Started with ChatGPT.
Keep experimenting with ChatGPT, pushing its boundaries and looking for new ways it can streamline your business.
Are you looking for help learning how to use ChatGPT in your marketing and sales? We’re running an 8-week live course with personalized coaching this fall on how to use ChatGPT to accelerate small business lead generation. Learn more about our AI Marketing Accelerator course here.