OpenAI’s GPT-5 is now free for all: How to access and everything else we know

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• OpenAI has launched its long-awaited GPT-5 model. 
• The model is claimed to be OpenAI’s fastest, smartest, and most capable yet.
• GPT-5 is available to everyone: Free, Plus, Pro, and Team/Enterprise/Edu users. 

There are two kinds of OpenAI models in this world: GPT and reasoning models. The advantages of the former, such as GPT-4o, are that they combine speed and accuracy, while reasoning models such as o3 and o4 take longer to think and use more compute power to produce better answers. OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-5, supposedly gives all users access to the best of both models. 

Also: Gen AI disillusionment looms, according to Gartner’s 2025 Hype Cycle report

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET’s parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

On Thursday, OpenAI finally unveiled the long-awaited GPT-5, the company’s next-generation family of models, which it touts as the fastest, smartest, and most capable yet. GPT-5 is a unified system that combines a smart model for most queries and a deeper reasoning model (GPT-5 thinking) for harder problems. 

If you are wondering exactly what it does and if you should even consider trying it, keep reading. 

What is GPT-5?

The key differentiator between GPT-5 and other OpenAI models is the real router feature, which allows GPT-5 to automatically understand which model to use based on the conversation, the complexity of the prompt, and more. The router is continuously trained on real signals to understand the best scenario in which to use a model. Once a user hits usage limits, a mini version of each model takes over. 

Also: Can GPT-5 fix Apple Intelligence? We’re about to find out

While GPT-4o was an extremely capable model, it was not a reasoning model like o3 and o4; those were limited to paying subscribers. As a result, GPT-5 is an especially big win for free users, who typically did not have access to any of the reasoning models and were, by default, excluded from more advanced models. 

The GPT-5 family of models is made up of GPT-5, GPT-mini, GPT-5-nano, and GPT-5 Pro. The nuances between these models will mostly be topics that developers or enterprises are concerned with when choosing which models to purchase from the API. 

However, for most consumers, what you need to know is that GPT-5 will be automatically selected even for free users, and when limits are reached will switch over to GPT-5 mini, a still capable but more lightweight model. GPT-5 Pro is only available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers, which comes at the hefty $200 per month cost. This is the most advanced version of GPT-5, meant for the most challenging and complex tasks — tasks that the average user likely won’t even encounter. 

 How does GPT-5 perform?

As with every model release, the GPT-5 drop was accompanied by benchmark evaluations, in which it earned state-of-the-art scores across math (AIME 2025), coding (SWE-Bench Verified), and multimodal understanding (MMMU). It even performed competitively on Humanity’s Last Exam, a newer benchmark with multi-modal questions in over 100 subjects, such as math, science, and the humanities, as seen below.

The company claims it is the strongest coding model yet, being able to create websites, apps, and games from simple text prompts. In particular, OpenAI shares that it has shown improvements in complex front‑end generation and debugging larger repositories.

Also: Google’s Jules AI coding tool exits beta with serious upgrades – and more free tasks

Before the model was released, I watched a live demo of the feature, in which the user created a fully functional web app with interactive elements such as flashcards, a quiz with right and wrong answers, and a game from a simple text prompt. The final product looked sleek. As someone who has recent experience building webpages, it would have taken me hours to stylize using JavaScript and CSS. GPT-5 appears to take vibe coding to the next level. 

Even if you are more of an average GPT-5 user who employs AI for writing, you will still reap these benefits. OpenAI claims GPT-5 is the most capable writing collaborator, being able to better tackle tasks that involve “structural ambiguity” such as free verse. Regardless of what you use ChatGPT to write, you should see improvements.

People have been increasingly reliant on ChatGPT for health-related queries because of its ability to conversationally break down medical jargon, which can often be scary and intimidating. Now the experience is optimized with GPT-5, flagging concerns, asking questions, understanding results, prepping you to ask providers questions, and weighing options. 

Also: ChatGPT can now talk nerdy to you – plus more personalities and other upgrades beyond GPT-5

Remember that GPT-5 does not replace a medical professional. OpenAI noted that the model performed the highest on HealthBench, a benchmark evaluation the company published earlier this year. External benchmarks for how AI performs in medical scenarios are not yet standardized. 

How does GPT-5 handle safety? 

One of the biggest improvements available in GPT-5 is that the model is more accurate than any previous reasoning model and has fewer hallucinations, according to OpenAI. The company said GPT-5’s responses are 45% less likely to contain a factual error than GPT-4o with web search enabled on anonymized prompts, and 80% less likely to contain a factual error than OpenAI o3. 

This is a big win, as reasoning models go beyond traditional pattern prediction and are invited to “think,” which leaves room for error.

OpenAI also added new publicly available benchmarks to test factuality, including LongFact and FActScore, in which GPT-5 with thinking showed a significant drop in hallucinations. GPT-5 (with thinking) also communicates more honestly with the user, sharing when a task is impossible or can’t be done. This is important because AI models often offer a plausible-sounding answer instead of admitting they don’t know, which can increase the circulation of misinformation. For more on the evaluation results, take a look at the system card.

Another brand-new safety feature is called “safe completions,” which enables ChatGPT to still answer prompts it would typically refuse. Instead, it will answer, but within the safety boundaries defined by OpenAI, and give a clear explanation of when it can’t. 

Lastly, while not entirely a safety issue, the model is less sycophantic, or effusively agreeable, and uses fewer unnecessary emojis.

How can you access GPT-5?

All users 

GPT-5 and GPT-5 mini are available today for all Plus, Pro, Team, and Free users, while Enterprise and Edu users will get access next week, OpenAI said. However, subscribers still receive tiered perks. For example, included in the $20 per month subscription, ChatGPT Plus subscribers have “significantly higher usage” limits than free users. Meanwhile, ChatGPT Pro users have unlimited GPT-5 and access to GPT-5 Pro, an even more advanced version of the model included in their $200 per month subscription. OpenAI said Enterprise and Edu users will be given “generous limits.” 

Also: Microsoft rolls out GPT-5 across its Copilot suite – here’s where you’ll find it

GPT-5 will be set as the default model for everyday work, replacing all other models for authenticated users. However, paid users will still have the option to select it under the model picker. OpenAI said free users may not be able to access full reasoning until a few days from now, noting that once free users reach usage limits, they’ll be moved to GPT-5 mini. 

Developers

The release of the model is also helpful for developers, as they can benefit from the increased reliability and accuracy. To accommodate this, OpenAI is making GPT-5, GPT-mini, and GPT-5-nano available in the API. Two new parameters, reasoning and verbosity, are also meant to help developers get exactly what they need from their model without overspending. Pro, Plus, and Team users can sign in to ChatGPT to code with GPT-5 in the Codex CLI.

The reasoning parameter makes GPT-5 cheaper for tasks that don’t require in-depth thinking, and then the verbosity parameter allows developers to fine-tune just how verbose they want GPT-5 to be. The pricing is cheaper than GPT-4o. For more information, you can check the blog post. 

What if I am not seeing GPT-5 yet?

GPT-5 began rolling out to all Plus, Pro, Team, and Free users upon launch on Thursday. However, the rollouts are gradual, so if you checked immediately and didn’t see it, it is worth checking again to see if you now have it. It had not shown up for me on my free, Plus, or Pro account until last night. 

Do make sure you are signed in. Even though GPT-5 is available to free users, if you don’t sign in, you won’t have access to the latest features, including GPT-5. 

You can keep up with my latest stories and tech adventures on social media. Follow me on Twitter/X at @sabrinaa_ortiz and on Instagram at @sabrinaa.ortiz. 

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