OpenAI’s International Conundrum
The Takeaway
- ChatGPT’s user base is mostly outside U.S. and Canada.
- OpenAI projects $112 billion in non-subscription revenue from free users.
- Lower international ARPU challenges OpenAI’s ad revenue growth.
If OpenAI has its way, nearly one-third of the planet will be using ChatGPT by the start of the next decade. That’s roughly triple its nearly 900 million weekly users, and sounds like an impressive base to build a big advertising and commerce business.
But where ChatGPT attracts new users will arguably be as important as how many it attracts. Already, nearly 90% of ChatGPT’s users are outside the U.S. and Canada, according to estimates by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. That’s an issue if OpenAI hopes to build a big advertising business.
OpenAI has told investors it could generate $112 billion in revenue from users of the free version of ChatGPT over the next five years, presumably from selling ads and taking a cut of online purchases made from the app. OpenAI spent 2025 hammering out how to put ads in ChatGPT and launching in-chat shopping features.
If those businesses take off, OpenAI has projected they could generate $46 billion in revenue from these nonpaying users in 2030 alone. But ChatGPT’s revenue will also depend heavily on where growth in its user base comes from, judging by the experience of existing digital ad firms.
At Pinterest, for example, the average revenue per user in the third quarter of 2025 was roughly $7.64 in the U.S. and Canada, $1.31 in Europe and just 21 cents in the rest of the world. That means the U.S. and Canada generated nearly 75% of Pinterest’s overall revenue, despite making up less than a fifth of its 600 million monthly active users. Snap’s numbers show a similar dynamic for that quarter.
Both Pinterest and Snap are relatively small, however, with $6 billion or less in annual revenue. Meta, a much bigger firm, hasn’t broken out the size or average revenue of its user base by region since the end of 2023. In the fourth quarter of that year, the U.S. and Canada accounted for just 10% of Meta’s daily active users but nearly 50% of overall revenue. At the time, Meta’s revenue per user was $68.44 in the U.S. and Canada and $23.14 in Europe, but just $5.52 in Asia-Pacific and $4.50 in the rest of the world.
OpenAI hasn’t publicly disclosed a geographic breakdown of its ChatGPT users, though estimates are available from outside analytics firms. In the third quarter of 2025, the U.S. and Canada accounted for 12% of monthly active users, according to Sensor Tower estimates, while roughly 66% of ChatGPT’s users were in regions outside the U.S., Canada and Europe.
Overall, India and Brazil rank in the top five ChatGPT markets by weekly active users, along with the U.S., Japan and France, The Information previously reported, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in early 2025 that India was the company’s No. 2 market by users at the time.
Both India and Brazil, while large markets for OpenAI, would likely have lower average revenue per user than those in the U.S., Japan and France, as is the case at Meta, Pinterest and Snap.
How successfully OpenAI translates user growth to revenue is a big question for the company’s investors in the coming years.
Only about 5% of OpenAI’s nearly 900 million weekly ChatGPT users pay for Pro or Plus subscriptions, which typically cost $20 and $200 a month, respectively. OpenAI projected that about 8.5% of 2.6 billion ChatGPT’s weekly active users, or 220 million people, will pay for a Plus plan by 2030.
In 2025, OpenAI also introduced a lower-cost subscription plan, ChatGPT Go, in countries like India, where it costs roughly $5 per month. The company lists more than 150 countries that have ChatGPT Go available to them as well.
Outside of subscriptions, OpenAI has told investors it expects to grow the average revenue per nonpaying users from $2 in 2026 to $15 by the end of 2030.
OpenAI has told investors it will continue racking up huge costs to run its AI models, forecasting that its so-called inference costs will total nearly $150 billion through 2030. OpenAI is hoping to wring revenue from the free version of ChatGPT to help offset those costs.
At the same time, OpenAI will have to ensure its ChatGPT user base keeps growing in the first place amid tough competition. In December, Sam Altman issued a “code red” to focus the company on improving ChatGPT. OpenAI also launched new features such as incorporating more imagery in responses in December to increase ChatGPT’s appeal.