Is the ChatGPT Subscription Worth Keeping?

14 Months at 28,000 Won a Month

I've been subscribing to ChatGPT Plus since December 2024. About $20 a month, roughly 28,000 won with the exchange rate. Over 14 months, that's approximately 390,000 won. Enough for a decent keyboard. I looked at my credit card statement and honestly assessed whether I got my money's worth.

The Stuff That's Genuinely Useful

Code review assistance is my most-used feature. Paste in code and ask "any issues?" and it occasionally catches edge cases I missed. Just last week it flagged a missing null check that would've been a production bug. Not 100% accurate, but it works as a second pair of eyes.

Technical document summarization is solid too. "Summarize this 30-page RFC so I can read it in 5 minutes" and it extracts the key points. What used to take 2 hours to read now takes 30 minutes.

I also use it for structuring blog posts. "I'm writing about this topic -- what order would work best?" gets me a reasonable outline. But I don't ask it to write the actual sentences. AI prose is polished but has no personality.

Where It Fell Short

As a coding assistant, it was more disappointing than expected. Simple utility functions and regex are handled well, but for complex code requiring project context, the limits are clear. Pasting production code hits token limits, and without knowing the project structure, it suggests wrong import paths or calls functions that don't exist.

(Once it confidently recommended a library that literally doesn't exist. npm install returned 404. So that's what hallucination looks like.)

I tried data analysis too, but Excel was often faster. About 80% of what AI calls "analysis" is really just "organization."

How Different Is It from Free?

Simple questions, translation, text formatting -- all fine on free. The Plus value comes down to the latest models, faster response times, and stable access during peak traffic. The honest conclusion is that 28,000 won a month is less about "better AI" and more about "not having to wait." During busy workdays, that difference is real.

I Tried Canceling for Two Weeks

As an experiment, I canceled for two weeks and used only free. The verdict: "Inconvenient, but not unbearable." Aside from wait times and not having the latest model, the difference wasn't dramatic.

I also use Claude on the side, and for coding tasks, Claude is more accurate fairly often. TypeScript type questions especially. If I had to subscribe to just one: Claude for coding, ChatGPT for general-purpose. Both subscriptions together exceed 40,000 won a month though. More companies are offering AI tool stipends, so asking your employer is worth a shot.

I Ended Up Keeping It

It's insurance for busy days when I need a fast answer. Roughly 5 hours a month in time savings, which at my hourly rate is above break-even. But it's not a "can't live without it" tool.

AI subscription services keep multiplying, and total AI subscription costs need conscious management now. ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Midjourney -- subscribe to all of them and you're over 100,000 won a month.