The official way to access GPT-4’s impressive set of features is through Open AI’s subscription of $20/month. But there are some ways to use Chat GPT-4 for free. We have selected a collection of the best GPT-4-based services you can try out now.
While many free and open-source generative AI Models have become increasingly popular in the last year, GPT-4 is still the gold standard of commercially available Large Language Models (LLM). Moreover, the latest version of OpenAI’s model has unlocked new levels of creativity thanks to its ability to navigate the web and its multimodal functionalities to interpret images or generate pictures from a prompt through the Dall•e 3 engine.
The official way to access GPT-4’s impressive set of features is through Open AI’s monthly subscription, but there are a few external services that will let you tap into the power of OpenAI’s most advanced model for free, albeit with some limitations.
We have selected 4 of the best GPT-4-based services you can try out now.
Microsoft Copilot
The easiest and fastest way to use GPT-4 without paying a subscription is through Microsoft Copilot. Thanks to Microsoft’s exclusive partnership with OpenAI, the company’s AI chatbot assistant is based on the same model as OpenAi’s most advanced product.
All you need to access the power of Copilot is a Microsoft account. The chatbot is intertwined with Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, and can be accessed directly via the Bing.com home page.
Microsoft’s chatbot is optimized for web searches, but it can also be used as a writing assistant or to generate images via the Designer function, which uses the Dall•e 3 model — exactly like chatGPT.
Perplexity.ai
Perplexity is an AI-based search engine that leverages GPT-4 for a more comprehensive and smarter search experience. The service also has an option called Copilot that uses the power of GPT-4 to make searching and answer generation even more precise.
Unlike other tools, it’s not the best for writing longer texts or generating images, but it focuses instead on a better Web Search experience.
If you want to use chatGPT for research and brainstorming ideas, Perplexity can be a valid alternative to the ChatGPT subscription. Due to the high cost of the OpenAi API, though, the Copilot service based on GPT-4 is limited to only five searches every 4 hours.
Poe.com
Poe.com is an online service developed by Quora that lets users access multiple AI models from one interface, including GPT-4 and all its functionalities. The free tier of Poe allows users to interact with GPT-4 with a daily cap. At the time of writing, the interaction was limited due to the increased number of requests, but the company opens it up again regularly.
The service also allows working with other interesting and capable models, such as Meta’s Llama and Anthropic’s Claude, both worth trying as alternatives to ChatGPT for writing or coding support.
Merlin Chrome Extension
With the Merlin Chrome extension, users can access several LLMs directly from Google’s browser, including GPT-4. After signing up, Merlin gives users an allocation of about 100 free queries. While that allows for about a hundred free GPT-3.5 interactions, GPT-4 uses up about 30 units per query, limiting the free tier to about three interactions with the model.
While not ideal for long-term use, Merlin is a great option for those who want to try out GPT-4 and understand if a pro subscription might be worth the price.
Our Advice
Many online services claim to offer chatGPT-4 for free, while in reality, they often access a limited subset of functionalities and resort to the cheaper and less demanding GPT-3.5 model for most queries.
We recommend you be aware of bold marketing claims before signing up and giving away personal data to services that lack a proven track record or the ability to offer free access to the models. Short of signing up for the OpenAI pro plan, the safest bet to leverage the power of GPT-4 is to do so through Microsoft Copilot.
As general advice, don’t discard alternative models such as Llama, Claude, or Mistral. All cost less than ChatGPT (or are completely free if installed locally) and have demonstrated similar capabilities to GPT-4, especially regarding text generation and writing copy, emails, or business-related content.
