Indian Startup Founders Push OpenAI to Offer Region-Specific AI Pricing

As the Indian founders met with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and their leadership team in Delhi, the sentiment was clear – tech leaders pushed for region-specific pricing for OpenAI’s models in India. 

We at AIM had pointed out earlier the implications of high-cost and premium pricing models for advanced tools in a country like India. 

India’s significance in the global AI ecosystem is visible, and Altman reinforced that by calling it its second-biggest market. India prides itself on having one of the best developer and startup ecosystems.

Indian leaders, including policymakers, venture capitalists, developers, and founders, met for a closed-door roundtable meeting to discuss how OpenAI’s models can support businesses in India.

Kunal Bahl, co-founder at Snapdeal, who was part of the event, took to X to share that OpenAI’s leadership team acknowledged its high pricing and the need for significant cuts for mass adoption, with possible updates ahead. 

In his post, Bahl says OpenAI acknowledged that foundational models reach 80-90% efficiency and require a robust application layer for full industry-specific use—crucial for startups in this space. 

Many startups are building on OpenAI’s models on the application layer. HealthifyMe’s Tushar Vashisht, who was also present at the event, said, “AI+human coaches, tutors, doctors—coming soon from India for India and the world.” 

In an AIM podcast earlier, OpenAI’s policy lead Pragya Misra cited Healthify and Be My Eyes as examples of the company’s impact on the Indian market and beyond. She highlighted how Indian startups are already developing products for a global audience.

The roundtable saw key players from India’s startup scene, including Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Unacademy’s Gaurav Munjal, Fractal’s Srikanth Velamakanni, Ixigo’s Aloke Bajpai, and Aakrit Vaish, who advises the India AI Mission.

IT minister Ashwini Vaishnav is optimistic about India’s youth on pushing innovation to the next level while keeping costs down. 

Speaking at the event, he compared it to the Chandrayaan mission, asking why the same ambition and efficiency couldn’t be brought to developing large language models (LLMs).

Addressing costs, Altman pointed out that AI training costs will continue to rise exponentially, so do the returns in intelligence. That said, Altman noted that the company will continue to make solutions unique for India’s needs.

Push for Competitive Pricing 

The meeting took place amid growing competition from Chinese AI lab DeepSeek, which claims to offer AI models comparable to OpenAI, Meta, and Google, at significantly lower costs and is open-source. The meeting focused on discussing Indian user preferences and API pricing. 

Touching upon the lower cost of DeepSeek APIs, speaking to Moneycontrol, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said, “Although Sam did not commit to anything, he said that options of open sourcing and reducing costs are both on the table.”

It is interesting to note that Altman recently conceded that the future of AI will ultimately be open-source in an AMA session on Reddit. “I personally think we have been on the wrong side of history here and need to figure out a different open-source strategy,” he said. “Not everyone at OpenAI shares this view,” Altman said. 

At the event, Altman discussed deep research, a new capability in ChatGPT that independently conducts multi-step research on the Internet. “Deep research can perform a single-digit percentage of all economic, time-consuming tasks. It can make you twice as efficient,” he said.

Funnily, in just 24 hours since the launch of OpenAI’s Deep Research, an open-source version of the tool was built on HuggingFace, scoring 55% on GAIA, one of the leading benchmarks for AI assistants. Just as startup founders questioned API pricing, India’s price-sensitive market suggests that a uniform pricing strategy for AI models may not be as effective from a consumer standpoint.

AI Adoption in India 

While AI accessibility is improving, true adoption in India hinges on both usability and affordability. Simplified interfaces help, but without cost-effective pricing, AI may remain out of reach for many.

OpenAI now offers ChatGPT Pro at $200/month and is rumoured to introduce plans up to $2,000/month due to high compute costs of advanced models. 

While economics often sees costs decrease over time. Many people responded to Altman on X, highlighting that in the current realm, $200 per month is comparable to salaries and average incomes in many economies outside the US – suggesting that AI subscription pricing cannot be the same globally. In India, for instance, the average monthly income is around ₹20,000. 

“The potential of advanced AI models with AGI capabilities in India lies in their ability to deeply integrate with the country’s diverse and localised contexts,” said Digital Empowerment Foundation’s Osama Manzar. He was speaking in the context of making AI more accessible and bridging the urban-rural divide.

“For these technologies to meaningfully impact the daily lives of average Indians and create new opportunities, the approach must prioritise hyper-localised content generation,” he added.