With many AI chatbots or AI text generators, you have to pay to use GPT-4 or the new GPT-4o.
Often only GPT-3.5 is free (and even then with limitations).
However, there are still ways to use GPT-4 or GPT-4o for free. Even with internet access.
I'll show you three of them in this article:
- GPT-4o has been available for free in ChatGPT since May 2024, but limited to 16 requests every 3 hours
- Microsoft Copilot offers GPT-4 completely free with internet access and no registration required
- Perplexity AI allows 5 free GPT-4 requests every 4 hours with integrated internet search
Why Aren't GPT-4 and GPT-4o Usually Free?
GPT-4 is OpenAI's most powerful language model. It requires a lot of computing power and is expensive to operate compared to GPT-3.5.
For third-party providers who have integrated GPT-4 into their apps via the OpenAI API, the new "GPT-4o" is ten times more expensive than "GPT-3.5 Turbo". The older "GPT-4 Turbo" is even twenty times more expensive.
Here's a quick overview of what a 10,000-word blog article costs:
- GPT-3.5 Turbo: approx. $0.01
- GPT-4o: approx. $0.10
- GPT-4: approx. $0.20
With millions or billions of generated words per month, this can quickly become expensive for tool and app providers.
1. ChatGPT
GPT-4 was always paid in ChatGPT since its introduction in March 2023. This meant it was only usable if you had subscribed to ChatGPT Plus, Team, or Enterprise for $20, $30, or $60 per month respectively.
However, this has changed since then:
In mid-May, OpenAI introduced its new AI model GPT-4o. And it's also available to free ChatGPT users.
It's the default model in ChatGPT and doesn't need to be specifically selected. You can check whether it was used under each chat:
However:
Usage is limited. Currently only 16 requests every 3 hours are available. During high traffic, sometimes fewer or no GPT-4o requests are available at all. If you've subscribed to ChatGPT Plus, you always have 80 requests every 3 hours with GPT-4o.
This means:
ChatGPT does offer GPT-4 for free, but with stricter limitations. 😉
2. Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft Copilot (formerly "Bing Chat") is currently one of the best ChatGPT alternatives. And for good reason:
Copilot not only offers GPT-4 for free, but also gives you access to the internet and can generate images.
Even using some plugins is possible, e.g., Instacart, Kayak, Klarna, OpenTable, Shop, or Suno.
The best part:
It's completely free and usable without registration. Not only through the browser, but now also as an app for Android or iOS.
It also offers generous usage limits. Without registration, it allows 5 responses per chat, and with a Microsoft account login, even 30 (300 responses per day are possible with login), having significantly higher limits than ChatGPT.
3. Perplexity.ai
Perplexity is an AI search engine that represents a great and free alternative to ChatGPT or Bing Chat.
It's particularly well suited for conducting intensive internet research on a topic.
Similar to Bing Chat or ChatGPT in Browsing Mode, the sources of generated responses are cited as footnote numbers:
Below the response, similar questions or topics are displayed, and you have the option to ask follow-up questions. By clicking on the underlined links in the response, you can also explore topics further.
I also find the new "Copilot" feature brilliant. Similar to AutoGPT or BabyAGI, it doesn't just give AI-generated responses but executes more complex workflows to answer a question or perform an action for you:
If you're planning a trip, for example, it asks you intermediate questions to find the best possible travel route for you:
Copilot uses GPT-4 for response generation. If you create an account with Perplexity, you can use it 5 times every 4 hours for free.
