How Much Do AI Subscriptions Cost in India? (2026 Price Guide)

AI subscriptions in India start around ₹334 a month for a writing tool and ₹399 for an entry AI assistant, with the mainstream tier clustering at ₹1,950–₹1,999. A realistic personal stack costs ₹500 to ₹2,000 a month. Several vendors still bill Indian users in USD, which adds a card forex markup of roughly 2–3.5% on top.

There is no single answer to “what does AI cost in India”, because the same plan can carry three different prices depending on whether you buy it on the vendor’s website, through the Apple App Store India storefront, or in dollars on an international card. This guide lists what each vendor actually publishes, explains why the numbers diverge, and builds three worked monthly budgets.

Master price table

Every tool below is shown at its cheapest paid tier.

Last verified: 9 August 2026

Label key: [web] = the vendor’s own web pricing page, India view. [IN-store] = Apple App Store India storefront price, GST-inclusive; web checkout may differ. [USD] = the vendor bills Indian users in dollars, and you also pay your card’s forex markup.

Two footnotes worth reading. QuillBot’s monthly and semi-annual rates sit behind sign-in and could not be verified, so ₹334 is the annually-billed monthly equivalent. ElevenLabs states its prices exclude taxes, levies and duties, so ₹528 is not the final number on your invoice.

Why the same plan costs different amounts in India

Three separate mechanisms are at work, and they stack.

App Store storefront prices versus web checkout. Several plans have a rupee price only because Apple’s India storefront requires local pricing. Claude Pro at ₹1,999 and Perplexity Pro at ₹1,999 are both India storefront figures. That is not necessarily what the same plan costs at web checkout. For Perplexity it definitively is not, and for Claude whether the website bills INR from India is unverified. Buying through an app can therefore be the only rupee route, or a more expensive one, depending on the vendor.

GST included versus excluded. Google Play India states that all prices include GST, so ₹1,950 for Google AI Pro is the amount charged. Cursor’s India-only Start plan is published as ₹649 tax inclusive. ElevenLabs, by contrast, publishes prices that exclude taxes. Comparing a GST-inclusive number to a GST-exclusive one makes the second look cheaper than it will be.

USD billing plus forex markup. Only Canva, Gamma, ElevenLabs and QuillBot bill Indian users in INR on their own websites. Notion, GitHub Copilot, Perplexity, and Cursor above the Start tier all show USD. On a USD charge your bank typically adds a forex markup of about 2–3.5%, and some cards add a flat cross-border fee as well. A $20 plan is therefore not simply twenty dollars converted. It is that conversion plus the markup, recomputed at whatever rate applies on your billing date, which is why the rupee amount drifts month to month.

The practical takeaway: when comparing two tools, compare the label as carefully as the number. A ₹500 [web, INR] plan and a $20 [USD] plan are not in the same category of predictability. Our best AI subscriptions in India roundup applies the same labelling.

What a realistic monthly AI budget looks like in India

Three stacks built only from the prices above, with the arithmetic shown.

The student stack, about ₹533 a month

Two caveats to budget for. The Google introductory rate lasts six months, after which AI Plus is ₹399, so this stack becomes ₹733 a month from month seven. And QuillBot’s ₹334 is only available annually, meaning roughly ₹4,008 upfront rather than a monthly debit. More options in AI tools for students in India.

The creator stack, about ₹1,906 a month

₹333 + ₹400 + ₹440 + ₹399 + ₹334 = ₹1,906. Note that ElevenLabs Starter is the cheapest tier that includes a commercial licence. The free tier does not have one, which makes it unusable for paid client work. Also note ChatGPT Go does not include deep research or agent mode; step up to Plus at ₹1,999 if you need those.

The developer stack, about ₹4,706 a month plus $10

₹1,999 + ₹1,658 + ₹649 + ₹400 = ₹4,706. We have deliberately not converted the Copilot line to rupees, because the amount depends on your card’s rate and markup on the billing date. Budget for it as a separate dollar charge.

One warning about Cursor Start: it includes $0 of other-model usage. You get Cursor’s own models only. If you need Claude or GPT models inside Cursor, Start is not the plan, and Pro at $20 a month puts you back in USD billing. See AI tools for coding in India for the fuller picture.

The seven legitimate ways to pay less

These are the officially documented routes. Everything else advertised should be treated sceptically.

1. Jio × Google AI Pro, 18 months at no cost. Active as of today. Jio users aged 18+ on qualifying 5G plans of ₹349 and above can activate Google AI Pro free for 18 months through the MyJio app. Jio states the value at roughly ₹35,100. No end date has been published, which also means it could close without notice.
2. Cursor Start at ₹649 a month, India only. A rupee-priced, tax-inclusive plan that appears in Cursor’s documentation rather than the public pricing page. Worth knowing about precisely because it is easy to miss.
3. Google AI Plus at ₹199 for six months. The introductory rate on the ₹399 plan. Set a calendar reminder for month six so the step-up does not surprise you.
4. Notion Plus free for verified college students and educators. Verification is by institutional email only. Notion states, “We don’t accept student IDs or other documentation.” K-12 is not eligible.
5. GitHub Copilot free for verified students, teachers and OSS maintainers. Verified students get Copilot Student, which is not full Pro; verified teachers and maintainers of popular open-source projects get Copilot Pro. Eligibility is re-evaluated monthly, so keep your verification current.
6. Perplexity Education Pro at $10 a month. Half the standard Pro rate, verified through SheerID. Still billed in dollars.
7. Annual billing, worth 15–33%. The published savings: Canva Pro ~33% (₹4,000/yr against ₹500/mo), Gamma Pro ~27%, Gamma Plus 20%, Cursor Pro 20%, ElevenLabs ~16.7% (“save 2 months”), Claude Pro ~15%. The catch is cash flow: you pay a year upfront on a category that changes every quarter.

A note on Canva education, because it is widely misreported: K-12 students get premium access free through Canva Education, but by teacher invite only. University students get Canva Free unless their institution has Canva for Campus. There is no self-serve individual student discount.

What has ended, so do not chase these

Airtel × Perplexity Pro. Perplexity’s help centre states, “The promotional offer ended on January 16, 2026.” It is not live, and pages still promoting it have simply not been updated.

The India ChatGPT Go free promo. Go went worldwide on 16 January 2026 at $8, and the promotional terms for the earlier India free period are no longer documented anywhere official. Treat it as ended. Go is ₹399 a month in India now, with no annual option.

Why “unlimited” disappeared in 2026

Across the board, vendors replaced message counts with usage windows and credit balances this year. This is the single most important thing to understand before you buy.

• Claude uses a rolling 5-hour session window plus weekly limits on paid plans, with no fixed message count published.
• Google governs usage with a compute-used model that refreshes every 5 hours, up to a weekly limit.
• Cursor publishes dollar-denominated allowances of other-model usage: $20 on Pro, $70 on Pro+, $400 on Ultra, $0 on Start. Its own models carry an unquantified included allowance, and agent limits are published only as multipliers.
• Gamma runs on credits: 1,000 a month on Plus, 4,000 on Pro, 20,000 on Ultra. Paid credits roll over up to twice the plan size. Free credits never renew, 400 at signup capping at 2,000 accumulated, and on cancellation anything above 400 is wiped. Per-action credit costs are not published and can change.
• GitHub Copilot attaches credits to each tier: $15 on Pro, $70 on Pro+, $200 on Max. Curiously, the credit allowance exceeds the price at every paid tier.
• Canva meters AI as an allowance. The free tier is capped at roughly 200 Standard and 20 Premium AI uses, and paid tiers are published only as multipliers, with heavy users pushed to a paid AI Pass add-on.
• Notion bundles AI into the plan rather than selling it as an add-on, but gates the full feature set behind Business, and meters Custom Agents and Workers separately: free to try, then $10 per 1,000 monthly Notion credits.

Two consequences for your budget. First, the headline price is a floor, not a ceiling, wherever overage falls to usage-based billing. Cursor is explicit about this. Second, you cannot compare two plans on price alone any more, because the thing you are buying is an allowance whose real size is often published only as a multiplier of a number the vendor never states.

How to decide

1. Start from the output, not the tool. Write down the three things you actually need produced each week. Most people need two tools, not five.
2. Filter by currency label first. If a predictable rupee debit matters, restrict yourself to [web, INR] vendors: Canva, Gamma, ElevenLabs, QuillBot, plus Google and the App Store storefront routes.
3. Check the free tier’s real ceiling before paying. Perplexity Free is described by the vendor as search only and very limited. ElevenLabs Free has no commercial licence. Gamma Free never refreshes its credits. Those are the three most commonly misjudged free tiers here.
4. Apply every eligibility you have. Student, teacher, OSS maintainer, Jio subscriber. The Jio route alone removes a ₹1,950 line item for 18 months.
5. Go annual only on tools you have already used for three months. The 15–33% saving is real, but so is the risk of prepaying for a category that reprices twice a year.
6. Re-check in six months. Every introductory rate in this guide has an expiry, stated or implied.

FAQ

Which AI subscription is cheapest in India? Among the tools verified here, QuillBot Premium at ₹334 a month billed annually is the lowest published paid price, and Google AI Plus at ₹399 (₹199 introductory for six months) is the cheapest general AI assistant. ChatGPT Go matches that ₹399 but does not include deep research.

Does UPI work for AI subscriptions? It depends on the vendor and tier. OpenAI confirms UPI works for ChatGPT Go and Plus, but not for Pro or Business. For other vendors, UPI availability is not published in the sources verified here, so check at checkout rather than assuming.

Why does my card statement show more than the listed price? Almost always because the plan is billed in USD. Notion, GitHub Copilot, Perplexity on the web and Cursor above Start all charge in dollars, and Indian banks typically add a forex markup of about 2–3.5%, sometimes with a cross-border fee. Tax treatment differs too: ElevenLabs excludes taxes from its listed prices.

Is Google AI Pro really free with Jio? Yes, as of today. Jio offers Google AI Pro free for 18 months to users aged 18 and above on qualifying 5G plans of ₹349 and above, activated in the MyJio app, with a stated value of about ₹35,100. No end date has been published, so activate rather than wait.

Is annual billing worth it? The published savings run from about 15% (Claude Pro) to about 33% (Canva Pro). It is worth it for tools you have used consistently for a few months. It is a poor bet for a tool you are still trialling, and note ChatGPT Go has no annual option at all.

Is ChatGPT Go still free in India? No. Go went worldwide on 16 January 2026 at $8, and the earlier India free promotion is no longer documented in any official page we could verify. In India it is ₹399 a month on the App Store storefront, monthly billing only.

Last verified: 9 August 2026

Primary sources

• chatgpt.com/pricing · help.openai.com/en/articles/11989085 · help.openai.com/en/articles/9793128 · help.openai.com/en/articles/10421635
• one.google.com/intl/en_in/about/google-ai-plans/ · support.google.com/googleone/answer/16286513 · jio.com/google-gemini-offer/
• claude.com/pricing · support.claude.com/en/articles/8325606 · anthropic.com/supported-countries
• perplexity.ai/hub/pricing
• canva.com/en_in/pricing/ · canva.com/en_in/education/students/
• notion.com/pricing · notion.com/help/notion-for-education
• cursor.com/pricing · cursor.com/docs/account/pricing
• gamma.app/pricing · help.gamma.app/en/articles/7834324
• github.com/features/copilot/plans · docs.github.com/en/copilot/get-started/plans
• quillbot.com/premium
• elevenlabs.io/pricing

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