This article isn’t written by ChatGPT but even I, as a human, agree that ChatGPT is an amazing tool for writing. And more.

Towards the end of 2022, everyone was talking about ChatGPT, a conversational AI tool by OpenAI. And by January 2023, everyone around me had already used it, including me.

It can write almost anything – from resumes to emails and from articles to product descriptions.

It generates text in just a few seconds and it sounds natural and human-written. Plus, it’s for free! All you need to do is ask it a question in everyday language and it will reply.

Apart from the free ChatGPT offering, OpenAI also offers ChatGPT Plus. It offers faster responses, image generation, and other perks. There are some other Plus features as well that I’ll discuss later in the article.

What is ChatGPT

In simple terms, it’s an AI-based tool that answers your questions or writes things for you. You could ask it to write business proposals, lesson plans, quizzes, speeches, book reviews, and a lot more.

GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) works on deep learning techniques that help it generate human-like responses.

Since it can fetch answers and talk like a human, it has gained immense popularity within just a few months.

It’s a versatile tool and can be used for many things. I’ve seen it being used for customer support, language translation, blog writing, product descriptions in ecommerce, and so much more.

And the best part is that it can change its tone, format, and style – depending on the kind of interaction you want.

But before you trust it blindly, keep in mind that it is AI, and anything it says should be taken with a grain of salt. It’s an evolving technology and refinements are being made every day.

GPT does provide somewhat accurate results, but it cannot replace a human in research or writing abilities.

ChatGPT throws up some errors occasionally. Here is a list of the most common ChatGPT errors and their fixes.

How to Use ChatGPT for Free

I’ll show you how to use ChatGPT without paying anything.

Step 1. Register on OpenAI

You can download the ChatGPT app on your phone or open the ChatGPT page on your browser.

Click on Sign Up to register on the website. You can register using your email address or through your Google or Microsoft account.

Step 2. Start chatting

Once you register, you’ll see this screen.

The text bar at the bottom is for prompts. You can type anything here.

ChatGPT also offers four suggestions to begin with. You can click on them to get started or enter your question.

Using ChatGPT is really easy. The tricky part is coming up with the right prompt.

What is ChatGPT 3.5?

When you register on the free version of ChatGPT, you might notice that it’s ChatGPT 3.5. What does that mean?

It is version 3.5 of the GPT model. This means it’s an improvement over the previous model – GPT 3.0. Just like its previous model (GPT 3.0), GPT 3.5 is also trained on a large amount of text from the internet to help it generate relevant responses.

The training data of ChatGPT 3.5 goes up to January 2022. So you can get information on topics that occurred before this date.

What is GPT-4?

GPT-4 is the latest version of GPT. It has greater accuracy and problem solving abilities. It is more imaginative and helps artists come up with creative things such as song lyrics, screenplays, and other things.

GPT-4 has been trained on even more data than GPT 3.5, which is why it provides more accurate results.

While GPT-4 is amazing, it’s not for free. You can access it by purchasing a plan such as Plus or Team. Let’s discuss the pricing plans.

What are the Paid Options?

While the free option is nice, ChatGPT has paid plans as well.

Plus

GPT Plus costs $20/month and is a good option for freelancers and small businesses. With Plus, you can access GPT 4.0, which is a more advanced model than GPT 3.5.

It can solve logical and reasoning problems with higher accuracy, thanks to its advanced data analysis skills.

It also lets you use Dall-E, the image generation tool by OpenAI. Plus, it has a larger context window so it can understand the context of your questions based on your previous ones.

It is faster than the free option, which means you’ll get answers even during peak hours. Apart from text, you also get voice input and output with GPT Plus.

Team

If you want your entire team onboard with ChatGPT, try the Team plan. It costs $25/month per user and offers some extra perks. In other plans, when you talk to ChatGPT, the AI bot learns from you. However, with the Team plan, your chats remain hidden and the bot doesn’t train on them.

It gives you everything that Plus offers and also lets you have a dedicated workspace and an admin console.

Enterprise

If you have a large company and want priority support and dedicated onboarding, go for the Enterprise plan that’s tailor-made according to your specifications.

How to Use ChatGPT for Your Needs (Examples)

You know the basics of ChatGPT, but how do you get the best out of it? The trick lies in using the right prompt.

I’ll show you some examples of how to use it

Example 1: Solving problems

Let’s take a real-life problem.

I’m holding a dinner party for 10 guests but I have just $200. I have to plan a menu that keeps everyone’s dietary preferences in mind. I need to have vegetarian, gluten-free, and dairy-free options.

I gave this data to ChatGPT and here is the output.

It’s pretty detailed with the right budget to help me create a plan. I may or may not follow it completely but it does give me an idea.

Example 2: Writing Excel formulas

Let’s say you’re a teacher and you maintain an Excel sheet for your students.

You need the results in the Average column.

Let’s ask ChatGPT for the formula.

I copied the code in my Excel sheet at E3. Then I dragged the pointer to copy the formula in the remaining cells.

That’s accurate. It generated the average scores of all students. This is just a basic example, you can ask GPT to come up with more complicated formulas too.

Example 3: Writing school essays

While ChatGPT can write your school essay, it’s best not to get the entire essay written by it because it’s unethical. Also, there are tools to detect AI work.

But even if you don’t want ChatGPT to write your essay, it can still help you. For example, you can ask ChatGPT to suggest you some topics related to your subject.

Once you pick a topic, you can ask ChatGPT to write an outline for the essay. You can modify the outline according to your needs.

If you feel stuck or you think you have writer’s block, you can even ask ChatGPT to complete a given sentence for you.

And once you’re done writing, you can ask ChatGPT to use your resources and generate citations.

Example 4: Writing code

Did you know that ChatGPT can write code for you? It can also debug your code and make it cleaner. However, not all code it generates is useable.

Depending on the prompt you provide, ChatGPT might be able to generate some usable code for you.

Make sure you test the code generated by ChatGPT to see if it is correct. It can also help you find the right code libraries so you can find the code you’re looking for.

Example 5: Gaming

Are you a fan of interactive fiction? If you miss sitting with your friends and playing Dungeons and Dragons, let ChatGPT help you take a trip down memory lane.

It will be your Dungeon Master and take you to a mystic fairy tale land where you take a role and enter the world of fantasy.

There are also other role-playing games that you can try with ChatGPT. And all of that is for free! Just ask ChatGPT to initiate a game and answer the questions to proceed through it.

Writing Better ChatGPT Prompts

I feel that a large part of using ChatGPT for free is about generating the right prompt. If you don’t use the right prompt, you will not get the solution you want.

Since I’ve been using GPT for quite some time now, I’ll share my tips for generating the right prompt.

1. Treat it like a person

I have a programmer friend who finds it difficult to “talk” to ChatGPT because it’s a bot. He would try to incorporate certain keywords so that GPT would understand the prompt.

The thing is – you don’t need any keywords. And you don’t need any special language.

Just treat ChatGPT like a friend. It’s trained to understand human language so you don’t have to enter tags or keywords to make it understand you. You can even ask layered questions. Trust me, ChatGPT 3.5 is pretty advanced.

2. Be Specific

I’ve shared some examples above. In one example, I asked ChatGPT to plan a menu for my dinner party. I could just say, “Prepare a menu for tonight’s dinner party.”

That would give me a generic menu. I gave ChatGPT the number of guests, my budget, dietary restrictions, and other details I had. Based on these details, it created the perfect menu for the party.

Keep in mind that generic prompts will result in generic answers. Always be as specific as you can. If you give it the right context of your problem, it will be able to solve it more efficiently.

3. Set the tone

ChatGPT can adopt different voices or tones for the content it generates. For example, I asked ChatGPT to talk about mosquitoes.

See what I did there? I gave it a tone or a personality. And ChatGPT answered my question by adopting that personality. You can give any personality to ChatGPT to generate the right response. You can make it a movie star, a historical figure, a cartoon character, a time traveler, an alien, or absolutely anyone or anything. It will generate answers accordingly.

You can also give it a word count for its answers. For example, you can ask ChatGPT to generate a response within 100 words.

4. Ask ChatGPT for prompt

Don’t know the right prompt? Ask ChatGPT to come up with one. If you don’t like what it suggests, you can make changes to it and generate another prompt. ChatGPT is so versatile, it can write its prompts!

I believe it can do anything, except make good jokes. I asked it to come up with a few jokes and I wasn’t impressed. Other than that, ChatGPT has been doing pretty well with my prompts.

Is ChatGPT Free? Should I Upgrade to the Paid Version?

If you’re not happy with ChatGPT for some reason, you can always upgrade. But what are the perks you’ll get when you upgrade? Let’s discuss this here.

More than plain text

Imagine you’re playing Dungeons and Dragons. But you don’t want just plain text. No, you want the complete experience.

The images of the mystical place you’re visiting. You won’t get this with free ChatGPT. Upgrade to Plus and you can access Dall-E which will generate images for you.

Current information

ChatGPT 4 has up-to-date information about what’s happening around the world. GPT 3.5, on the other hand, is trained on data up to January 2022. So if you want ChatGPT to answer a question on the latest happenings, you’ll need to upgrade.

Accurate responses

No, GPT 4.0 isn’t 100% accurate but it’s more accurate than 3.5 for sure. According to OpenAI, version 4.0 is 10 times more advanced than version 3.5. This means it will give more coherent and accurate responses.

Customized bots

With a paid plan, you can access the GPT store, which has customizable AI bots. You can train them with your own instruction sets. For example, you can use your company data to train your bots.

In a Nutshell

ChatGPT has a free plan and some paid plans. The free plan is totally lit so you don’t really have to go with the paid plans unless you are a professional and want some extra features.

I have highlighted some ways in which you can use ChatGPT for free. You can generate content, but that’s not all. You can ask GPT to solve real-world problems, write Excel formulas, play games, and a lot more.

What are you planning to do with ChatGPT?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)