5 Ways to Access GPT-4 for Free (Updated 2024)

OpenAI's GPT-4 is one of the most advanced and powerful large language models (LLM) currently available. However, to fully access its features, you need to subscribe to ChatGPT Plus for $20/month.

Fortunately, there are several ways you can use GPT-4 for free with certain limitations:

1. Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft is one of the first companies to partner directly with OpenAI, investing billions of dollars into the company for AI research.

Accordingly, Microsoft Edge's Bing Chat became one of the first ways to use GPT-4 for free, allowing up to 300 conversations per day, with each Bing conversation limited to 30 turns. Then, on December 1, 2023, Microsoft renamed Bing Chat to Copilot, reducing the 300 conversations per day limit and deploying Copilot support in many other Microsoft services.

Copilot also has other benefits. For example, you can use OpenAI's DALL-E 3 text-to-image tool for free, allowing the creation of high-detail original images by entering text. Copilot Image Creator works similarly to OpenAI's tool, with minor differences between the two. However, users can use it to create unique AI images almost instantly.

If you want to use GPT-4 for free, Microsoft Copilot is one of the best options. Subscribing to ChatGPT Plus is still the best overall option due to its rich features, but if you only have a few questions you want answered, Copilot is the next best choice.

2. ChatGPT

https://openai.com/chatgpt/

OpenAI introduced many new features at the Spring Update event in May 2024, and one of them is the new GPT-4 version: GPT-4o.

GPT-4o is completely free for all ChatGPT users, although there are significant limitations for those who do not subscribe to ChatGPT Plus. First, free ChatGPT users can only send about 16 GPT-4o messages within a 3-hour period. Once users reach the message limit, ChatGPT will block access to GPT-4o.

Second, although GPT-4o is a fully multimodal AI model, it does not support creating DALL-E images. While this is a regrettable limitation, it is not a major issue since you can easily use Microsoft Copilot.

However, free access to GPT-4o comes with some great features. Free ChatGPT users can use GPT-4o to search and ask questions while browsing the web, analyze data, images, and support file extensions. Thus, it offers many of ChatGPT Plus's core features to free users. It also allows free users to access custom GPTs, although these have similar limitations to GPT-4o (and free users cannot create custom GPTs but only interact with them).

3. Perplexity.ai

https://www.perplexity.ai/

Perplexity.ai is a promising AI tool with an option to use GPT-4 for free. Although the free version of Perplexity does not specifically state that you are using GPT-4, enabling its "Copilot" mode will grant you access to GPT-4, albeit limited to 5 questions every 4 hours.

Overall, this is not a bad option and helps you understand what Perplexity.ai is. If OpenAI is aiming to create general artificial intelligence, then Perplexity.ai seems to be aiming for Internet search purposes and its tool is a great choice for those wanting an accelerated search experience.

Upgrading to the Pro version of Perplexity.ai will cost you $20/month (similar to subscribing to ChatGPT Plus), but it means you can ask over 300 questions provided by Copilot, use Anthropic's Claude 2 model, and upload as many files as you want for AI analysis.

4. Merlin

Merlin is a handy Chrome browser extension that provides free access to GPT-4, although limited to a specific number of queries per day.

What makes Merlin a great way to use GPT-4 for free is its requests. As a Merlin Free user, you receive 102 requests per day. Each GPT-4 query will cost you 30 requests, equivalent to about 3 free GPT-4 questions per day (similar to most other free GPT-4 tools). Merlin also has an option for web access on demand, although this doubles the multiplier (60 requests instead of 30).

Choosing GPT-3.5 will be much more cost-effective, with one request per question, and you can also integrate Merlin into your social media accounts if needed.

5. Hugging Face

Hugging Face is an open-source AI and Machine Learning development website where thousands of developers collaborate and build tools.

There are some Hugging Face Spaces that claim to provide access to GPT-4, but take too long to answer a reliable question or are limited by the small amount of processing power available for free Hugging Face accounts, so they are not worth using.

However, the article still lists this tool for you to try out. The image above shows one Space unable to process a question after 10 minutes, while another Space asks you to enter a ChatGPT API key.

Some other tools previously provided free access to GPT-4 like Poe by Quora, Ora, Forefront, Nat.dev, but later removed this option or upgraded it to a premium or subscription. The reason is simple: Integrating GPT-4 access into a website and providing that access for free would be very costly, especially as many people want to access GPT-4 without paying.

In addition to the 5 ways above, you can also search for new tools and projects that offer free access to GPT-4. However, be cautious of untrustworthy and scam sources.

I hope you find a suitable way to access and experience the power of GPT-4!