There are obviously differences between the free tier and paid tier of AI services. Paid tiers typically give you access to a higher limit, more priority in processing, and more powerful features. But sometimes, these features eventually trickle down to the free tier. Such is the case with the ChatGPT schedule feature, which is now available for free users.
ChatGPT schedule feature now available for free accounts
According to the latest ChatGPT release notes, free accounts can now use the schedule feature. Just in case you didn’t know about this feature, OpenAI announced it back in June earlier this year. Basically, it allows users to schedule recurring prompts. This is useful for reminders and web monitoring, like if you want ChatGPT to scan the web for the latest news articles, financial information, and so on.
However, back then it was limited to ChatGPT’s paid accounts, so free users had to sit this one out. But now, that has changed. According to OpenAI, “Free users can create up to three active scheduled tasks. Tasks can run once or recur no more than once per day using flexible scheduling windows.”
That being said, there is a catch. OpenAI says that free accounts and ChatGPT Go users cannot create webhook-triggered tasks. This is where an automated process kicks in when an event is triggered, like when you get a new message on Slack or new email on Gmail. For example, you can set up ChatGPT so that when you get an email in Gmail outside of working hours, it will send a reply for you to let the other person know you’ll reply to them later.
An advantage over the competition
It’s actually interesting that OpenAI has decided to make this feature free. This is because other companies with AI models still require users to have paid accounts. This includes Google, where Gemini’s scheduling feature is limited to paid subscribers. Anthropic’s Claude also requires users to have a paid subscription to access the scheduling feature.
This gives OpenAI an advantage to try and get more users onto its platform. Presumably, this is part of the company’s plan to give users a taste and then lock them into a subscription further down the road.
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