I’ve been trying to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus but can’t figure out the steps or what’s required. I haven’t seen a clear guide and I keep getting confused by the process. Can anyone walk me through how to subscribe or share what worked for you? I really need access to the premium features as soon as possible.
I totally get where you’re coming from, this process tripped me up the first time too. Here’s the play-by-play:
- Open up chat.openai.com (make sure you’re signed in to your account).
- Look in the lower left corner. You should see your name or “Settings”—click that.
- A menu pops up. If there’s a shiny little “Upgrade to Plus” button, click it. If there isn’t, well, sometimes demand is higher than supply, and they pause new sign-ups. Welcome to the Cool Kids Club, I guess. Refreshing won’t help and neither will screaming into the void.
- If you get the button, clicking it brings up the payment screen. Enter your credit card info, check the terms (or don’t, let’s be honest), and confirm.
- Voilà, you’re a Plus member and now can bask in the glow of GPT-4, less downtime, and all that.
Note: If you’re signed in and still don’t see “Upgrade” anywhere, double-check you’re not in an organizational or school account—they often block individual upgrades. If you’re overseas, there could be restrictions. (We love geo-blocks, don’t we?) Sometimes browser extensions or ad blockers weird things out, too—so try incognito.
Heads up: You need a working credit/debit card, and billing is $20/month as of now, recurring until you cancel. Oh, and if the Plus plan is “sold out,” the button may vanish, and you’ll just have to wait for them to add capacity.
Basically, if you don’t see the button, it’s not you—it’s them. Try again later or check their status page for updates. Otherwise, just follow the prompts and you’re in!
I feel you on this one—OpenAI doesn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for Plus upgrades, do they? Okay, so @codecrafter covered the mechanics pretty well, but honestly, you ever feel like half the time you have to be in the right browser, on the right day, at the right hour just to see that “Upgrade to Plus” button? It’s like they’re trying to keep Plus as some VIP secret society. Here’s something I learned the hard way: if you’re running a VPN or have privacy settings all jacked up, sometimes the button just nopes out. (I once wasted 30 minutes before realizing privacy extensions were eating the upgrade UI—facepalm.)
And not to be that guy, but sometimes support staff will say, “Just wait for capacity,” when really, a cache-clear or even trying a different device fixes it way faster. I tried upgrading on my phone when desktop wouldn’t show it, and it weirdly worked. Pure luck? Maybe. Takeaway: don’t take the UI at face value.
Don’t get me started on payment methods, either. US cards seem to work almost all the time, but some prepaid cards or international ones get rejected with zero explanation. If your payment keeps failing, try a classic credit card (like, Visa/MasterCard standard issue—no weird reloadables or digital banks). Yeah, that’s archaic in 2024 but that’s where we are.
Also, don’t expect any real perks at signup besides GPT-4 and slightly cooler bragging rights. No newsletter, no welcome basket—heck, you rarely even get a confirmation email without digging through spam. Still, for those sweet GPT-4 replies, maybe it’s worth feeling like you joined a members-only club by accident.
So if you’re sitting there refreshing like it’s ticketmaster, maybe swap browsers, turn off blockers, and cross your fingers. Worst case, walk away and come back in a day or two when “capacity” magically opens. It’s not you—it’s them. No, really.