Revealed: ChatGPT Unmissable Stats and Surprising Facts (September 2023)

ChatGPT is a powerful natural language processing (NLP) tool.

It can generate human-like responses in a conversational form.

Since its launch on 30th November 2022, it has:

1. Gained over 173 million users
2. Added more than 867 plugins
3. Received a valuation of $29 billion

In this article, we’ll review all the statistics behind ChatGPT’s explosive growth.

Overview

Founders	Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba, and John Schulman.
Current CEO	Sam Altman
Parent Company	OpenAI
Team Size	375
Number of Users	173 million users (As of April 2023)
Launch Date	November 30, 2022
Competitors	Google Bard, Claude by Anthropic, xAI, ALexTM
Headquarters	San Francisco
Funded By	Microsoft, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, Founders Fund, and K2 Global.
Total funding	$11.3 billion over 7 rounds
Revenue	$80 million per month
Technology Used	Python, Microsoft Azure
ChatGPT Cut-Off Date	September 2021
Monthly Website Visits	1.63 billion (As of June 2023)
Dataset Size	300 billion words (570GB)

ChatGPT History & Early Release Date

A demo of ChatGPT was first released on November 30, 2022, by OpenAI.

Within just 5 days, the chatbot had attracted over one million users.

This makes it the 2nd fastest growing software to reach 1 million users.

ChatGPT Timeline

16 June 2016	OpenAI published a research paper on generative models trained with a large dataset
19 September 2019	OpenAI published a research paper on fine-tuning using human preferences and feedback on the GPT-2 language model
27 January 2022	OpenAI published a research paper on InstructGPT models – ChatGPT’s sibling
30 November 2022	ChatGPT was launched publicly with the release of GPT-3.5
1 February 2023	OpenAI launches ChatGPT Plus subscription at $20 per month
7 February 2023	Microsoft launches Bing with a built-in ChatGPT
1 March 2023	OpenAI launched API for ChatGPT
9 March 2023	Microsoft makes ChatGPT available in the Azure OpenAI service
14 March 2023	OpenAI launches GPT-4 and is available for paid subscribers
23 March 2023	Paid subscribers can connect ChatGPT to the internet
29 March 2023	Open letter with more than 1,100 signatures requesting for AI labs to immediately halt for 6 months. Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and Tristan Harris were among the many people who signed.
1 April 2023	Italy’s data protection authority blocked ChatGPT
22 April 2023	Toran Bruce created Auto-GPT
23 April 2023	OpenAI released ChatGPT plugins, GPT3.5 with internet browsing, GPT-4 with internet browsing
24 April 2023	OpenAI wants to trademark “GPT” which stands for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer”
25 April 2023	OpenAI introduces ChatGPT Business
28 April 2023	OpenAI closes $300M in share sales by Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, Founders Fund and K2 Global
3 May 2023	Hackers used ChatGPT to spread malware on Facebook
18 May 2023	OpenAI launches an iOS app for ChatGPT
19 May 2023	ChatGPT launches plugins for Plus subscribers
23 May 2023	OpenAI launched Browsing and Code Interpreter
25 May 2023	ChatGPT app is now available in 12 countries: Albania, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Jamaica, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, South Korea, the U.K. and the U.S.
26 May 2023	ChatGPT is extended to more than 30 countries: Algeria, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Estonia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lithuania, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia, Nauru, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Qatar, Slovenia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.
30 May 2023	Texas judge orders all AI-generated content must be checked by a human being
31 May 2023	ChatGPT Plus users can now access ChatGPT plugins
8 June 2023	ChatGPT users can now use ChatGPT on iPad, Siri and Shortcuts
15 June 2023	Mercedes plans to add ChatGPT to their infotainment system
28 June 2023	ChatGPT app can now browse the web via Bing
3 July 2023	Web browsing is disabled
6 July 2023	ChatGPT releases Code Interpetor paying subscribers. OpenAI has also announced GPT-4 to be available for developers.
July 19, 2023	ChatGPT Plus customers can now enjoy double the number of messages for GPT-4 and shorter message limits.
July 19, 2023	Stanford researchers found that GPT-4 performance has deteriorated significantly
July 20, 2023	Custom instructions are rolled out in Beta.
July 25, 2023	ChatGPT users can use ChatGPT on Android
August 9, 2023	Custom instructions are rolled out for all users.
August 21, 2023	EU & UK get access to custom instructions.
August 28, 2023	OpenAI introduces a new pricing model ChatGPT Enterprise focused on privacy for business.

ChatGPT Statistics

ChatGPT User Growth Statistics

After only two months of launching, ChatGPT has become the second-fastest software to reach 100 million active users.

ChatGPT crossed over 1 million active users in just 5 days since its launch on 30 November 2022.

In just under 60 days, ChatGPT was able to grow its user base by 9,900%.

The only other platform to reach a faster user growth rate is Threads by Meta.

Platform	Launch Year	Time Taken to Reach 1 Million Users	Time taken to reach 100 million users
Threads	2023	1 hour	5 days
ChatGPT	2022	5 days	2 months
Instagram	2010	2.5 months	2.2 years
Spotify	2008	5 months	5.4 years
Dropbox	2008	7 months	3.1 years
Facebook	2004	10 months	3.2 years
Foursquare	2009	13 months	4.8 years
Twitter	2006	2 years	3.9 years
Airbnb	2008	2.5 years	4.6 years
Kickstarter	2009	2.5 years	6.2 years
Netflix	1999	3.5 years	9.3 years
Snapchat	2011	1 year	4.9 years
Google	1996	18 months	4.6 years
Youtube	2005	8 months	2.4 years
Tiktok	2016	200 days	4 months

ChatGPT web traffic statistics

Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has seen a 967.42% increase in web traffic.

However, since May 2023, the website had a decline in 533 million total monthly visits.

Month	Total Monthly Visits
November 2022	152.7 million
December 2022	266 million
January 2023	616 million
February 2023	1 billion
March 2023	1.6 billion
April 2023	1.756 billion
May 2023	1.805 billion
June 2023	1.63 billion
July 2023	1.473 billion
August 2023	1.426 billion

This high traffic is even more impressive when we study their average user duration & bounce rate:

Month	Total Monthly Visits	Bounce Rate	Pages Per Visit	Average Visit Duration
April 2023	1.756 billion	17.33%	6.22	00:08:32
May 2023	1.805 billion	37.37%	4.49	00:07:48
June 2023	1.63 billion	38.67%	4.26	00:07:27
July 2023	1.473 billion	39.39%	4.00	00:07:12
August 2023	1.272 billion	42.50%	3.89	00:06:57

In the past 3 months, we can see an average bounce rate of 40.09%.

There is also a 21.34% increase in bounce rate since April 2023.

Visitors are also spending less time on the site.

ChatGPT marketing

Currently, ChatGPT is not running any paid advertising such as Google Ads and YouTube ads.

Instead, most of its growth is from organic traffic.

More than 7/10 users access ChatGPT by directly typing the URL in the browser.

Here’s the complete breakdown of their traffic in August 2023:

Channel	Percentage of traffic	Total traffic
Direct	78.67%	1.12 billion visitors
Organic search	15.83%	225.6 million visitors
Social	2.09%	29.8 million visitors
Email	0.20%	2.85 million visitors
Paid search	0.00%	0 visitors
Display ads	0.00%	0 visitors

ChatGPT social media traffic

6/10 social media traffic comes from YouTube.

Here’s a complete breakdown of ChatGPT’s social media traffic for August 2023:

Rank	Platform	Percentage of traffic	Total traffic
1	Youtube	60.57%	18.1 million
2	Others	12.11%	3.61 million
3	Whatsapp Webapp	10.70%	3.19 million
4	Facebook	9.27%	2.76 million
5	Twitter	3.89%	1.16 million
6	Linkedin	3.46%	1.03 million

ChatGPT Keywords

In the United States alone, ChatGPT has an estimated 3,800 keywords.

These keywords are estimated to bring 546,900 monthly visitors with an estimated traffic cost of $435,700.

Here are the top 20 keywords by traffic volume for ChatGPT in the United States:

Rank	Keywords	Traffic volume	Google Position
1	chat	246,000	2
2	chat gpt login	201,000	1
3	chatgpt login	110,000	1
4	chat ai	74,000	1
5	chat.openai/chat	60,500	1
6	ai chat	60,500	1
7	chat openai	60,500	1
8	chat.openai	40,500	1
9	chatgpt stock	18,100	60
10	google chat online	18,100	22
11	chat online	18,100	8
12	chat.openai.com	18,100	1
13	002	12,100	6
14	chatai	12,100	1
15	chatg	12,100	2
16	chat open ai	9,900	1
17	open ai chat	9,900	1
18	chatgpt open ai	9,900	1
19	openchat ai	6,600	1
20	open chat ai	6,600	1

ChatGPT by Country

Currently, 161 countries have access to ChatGPT.

Here’s the list of countries that have banned ChatGPT:

• China
• Russia
• Ukraine
• Belarus
• Venezuela
• Afghanistan
• Iran

Currently, India has the highest traffic share of any other country.

Here’s a breakdown of the top countries using ChatGPT:

Rank	Country	Traffic Share	Visit Duration	Pages / Visit
1	India	9.27%	00:07:07	3.59
2	United States	8.78%	00:05:09	3.37
3	Japan	7.09%	00:04:19	3.26
4	Indonesia	5.41%	00:10:34	4.70
5	Brazil	3.86%	00:14:02	6.43

How many paying users does ChatGPT have?

Currently, OpenAI has not disclosed this information.

What is ChatGPT’s revenue, funding & investments?

OpenAI has currently received funding from:

Investor	Investment	Valuation	Announced Date
Microsoft Corp	$1 billion	–	11 March 2019
Microsoft Corp	$10 billion	$20 billion	23 January 2023
Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, Founders Fund and K2 Global	$300 million	$27-$29 billion	Apr 28, 2023

In their investor presentation, OpenAI has mentioned that:

• In 2023, they will rake in $200 million in revenue
• In 2024, they will bring in $1 billion in annual revenue

Reports have stated that:

• In 2022, OpenAI’s annual revenue was $28 million
• In 2023, OpenAI’s monthly revenue is around $80 million ($960 million per year)

This means that OpenAI had a 35x revenue growth since 2022.

Source: The Information

How much does it cost to run ChatGPT?

OpenAI has not disclosed any information about the running cost for ChatGPT.

According to the CEO, the cost of a single chat is under 10 cents. Source: Sam Altman

However, according to an Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Professor at Maryland University, Tom Goldstein, we can estimate:

• Daily cost: Approximately $100 thousand
• Monthly cost: $3 million
• ChatGPT has 175 Billion parameters
• ChatGPT receives 10 million queries per day (assuming 1 million users make an average of 10 queries/user)

Note: His estimates are based on the Azure Cloud costs

How much does ChatGPT cost?

ChatGPT Plus costs $20 per month. With this, you will get access to:

• GPT-4 (has a cap of 25 messages every 3 hours)
• Code Interpreter
• Plugins
• Search the web with Bing (Currently disabled – July 2023)
• Sharing chat with other users

Since August 28, 2023, ChatGPT has also introduced a new plan: ChatGPT Enterprise.

This pricing model offers personalised pricing based on the business’s needs and scalability. 

ChatGPT features

Here are some of ChatGPT’s biggest features:

• Code Interpreter – You can run Python code in a live working environment. Additionally, users can upload documents (pdf, python files, CSV files) for ChatGPT to use.
• Plugins – Access more than 422 verified plugins. These plugins are made by 3rd party software using OpenAI’s API.
• History – You can export your chat history & training and clear all conversations. You also have chat history tabs for you to quickly navigate between different chats.
• Search the web with Bing – You can let ChatGPT access the internet using Bing.
• Shared links – You can share entire chat conversations for others to view
• Custom instructions – You can provide specific guidelines for the GPT models to follow

How many ChatGPT plugins are there?

Currently, there are more than 867 verified plugins in the marketplace.

List of Exams ChatGPT Has Passed

ChatGPT has sat through more than exams. Here are the results:

Exam	Models	Results
Uniform Bar Exam	GPT-3.5	10th percentile
Uniform Bar Exam	GPT-4	90th percentile (298 out of 400)
SAT	GPT-3.5	Reading & Writing: 670/800 (87th percentile) Math: 590/800 (70th percentile) Total score: 1260/1600
SAT	GPT-4	Reading & Writing: 710/800 (93rd percentile) Math: 700/800 (89th percentile) Total score: 1410/1600
GRE	GPT-3.5	Verbal section: 99th percentile Quantitative section: 80th percentile Writing test: 54th percentile
GRE	GPT-4	Verbal section: 63rd percentile Quantitative section: 25th percentile Writing test: 54th percentile
USA Biology Olympiad Semifinal Exam	GPT-3.5	–
USA Biology Olympiad Semifinal Exam	GPT-4	99th-100th percentile in the 2020 Semifinal exam
AP Exams	GPT-3.5	Art History: 5 Biology: 4 Environmental Science: 5 Macroeconomics: 2 Microeconomics: 4 Psychology: 5 Statistics: 3 US Government: 4 US History: 5 Physics 2: 3 Calculus BC: 1 Chemistry: 2 World History: 4 English Language & Composition: 2
AP Exams	GPT-4	Art History: 5 Biology: 5 Environmental Science: 5 Macroeconomics: 5 Microeconomics: 5 Psychology: 5 Statistics: 5 US Government: 5 US History: 5 Physics 2: 4 Calculus BC: 4 Chemistry: 4 World History: 4 English Language & Composition: 2
AMC Exams	GPT-3.5	AMC 10: 36/150 AMC 12: 30/150
AMC Exams	GPT-4	AMC 10: 30/150 AMC 12: 60/150
Sommelier examinations	GPT-3.5	Introductory Sommelier: 80% Certified Sommelier: 58% Advanced Sommelier: 46%
Sommelier examinations	GPT-4	Introductory Sommelier: 92% Certified Sommelier: 86% Advanced Sommelier: 77%
Leetcode	GPT-3.5	Easy: 12/40 Medium: 8/80 Hard: 0/45
Leetcode	GPT-4	Easy: 31/40 Medium: 21/80 Hard: 3/45
University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School MBA Exam	GPT-3	Passes the exam with scores of B & B-
US Medical Exam Licensing	GPT-4	More than 90% accuracy rate

ChatGPT versions & How Much Data is ChatGPT Trained On?

Model	Release date	Parameters
GPT-1	June 2018	Trained on 117 million parameters.
GPT-2	February 2019	Trained with 1.5 billion parameters.
GPT-3	June 2020	Trained with 175 billion parameters.
GPT-3.5	15 March 2022	The model was trained on data up to June 2021.
GPT-4	14 March 2023	Estimated to be trained with approximately 100 trillion parameters. (No official announcement by OpenAI)

What is the difference between GPT-3 and GPT-4?

There are 4 key differences:

Difference	Model
Parameters: These are the internal variables of the model that are learned and adjusted during the training process such as the weights of neural networks.	GPT-3 was trained with 175 billion parameters. GPT-4 was trained with approximately 100 trillion.
Dataset size: This refers to the volume of data that the model was trained on or the training dataset.	GPT-4 was trained on 45 gigabytes of data. GPT-3 was trained on just 17 gigabytes. This is one of the factors why the output quality in GPT-4 is better than GPT-3.
Features / Performances	GPT-3 is unimodal which means it can only accept text inputs but can’t handle images or other data types. GPT-4 is multimodal which means it can accept and produce text and images. GPT-4 is also more reliable and factual than GPT-3 which is prone to hallucinations and errors. GPT-4 can produce better outputs for tasks such as text completion, translation, summarisation, and coding.
Cost	GPT-4 is more expensive than GPT-3.

ChatGPT competitors

Here’s a list of ChatGPT competitors & alternatives:

Software	Parent Company
Bard	Google
Youchat	Richard Socher, Bryan McCann
ALexTM 20B	Amazon
Ernie Bot	Baidu
Claude 2.0	Anthropic
ChatGLM
Stanford Alpaca	Open Source
AutoGPT	Open Source
Open Assistant	Open Source
Vicuna	Open Source
Dolly 2	Open Source

Summary

ChatGPT is an AI language model that has sparked the movement for Artificial Intelligence tools.

Its ability to take user queries, and process them into the human language has helped make work more efficient and productive.