Subscription Pricing Frustration

Complaints about $250/month Google AI Ultra subscription required for Deep Think access, desire to test new models without platform lock-in, and calls for OpenRouter availability

Users are expressing deep frustration over the $250 monthly price tag for Google’s AI Ultra tier, viewing the exorbitant cost as a prohibitive barrier that stifles experimentation with new "Deep Think" capabilities. Critics argue that this pricing is particularly difficult to justify given a user experience often marred by context loss and technical glitches, with some comparing Google’s restrictive ecosystem to the indifferent monopolies of the 1970s phone companies. There is a strong collective desire for these models to be available on neutral platforms like OpenRouter to avoid platform lock-in, though many fear the "golden age" of easy access is ending as vendors pivot toward mandatory keys and exclusive enterprise tiers. Ultimately, while some power users are willing to pay for high-stakes research, the consensus suggests a growing resentment toward paying premium prices for models that remain difficult to test or integrate into existing workflows.

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It’s not that I want to achieve world domination (imagine how much work that would be!), it’s just that it’s the inevitable path for AI and I’d rather it be me than then next shmuck with a Claude Max subscription.

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I’m surprised that gemini 3 pro is so low at 31.1% though compared to opus 4.6 and gpt 5.2. This is a great achievement but its only available to ultra subscribers unfortunately

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Their models might be impressive, but their products absolutely suck donkey balls. I’ve given Gemini web/cli two months and ran away back to ChatGPT. Seriously, it would just COMPLETELY forget context mid dialog. When asked about improving air quality it just gave me a list of (mediocre) air purifiers without asking for any context whatsoever, and I can list thousands of conversations like that. Shopping or comparing options is just nonexistent.
It uses Russian propaganda sources for answers and switches to Chinese mid sentence (!), while explaining some generic Python functionality.
It’s an embarrassment and I don’t know how they justify 20 euro price tag on it.

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It's very hard to tell the difference between bad models and stinginess with compute.

I subscribe to both Gemini ($20/mo) and ChatGPT Pro ($200/mo).

If I give the same question to "Gemini 3.0 Pro" and "ChatGPT 5.2 Thinking + Heavy thinking", the latter is 4x slower and it gives smarter answers.

I shouldn't have to enumerate all the different plausible explanations for this observation. Anything from Gemini deciding to nerf the reasoning effort to save compute, versus TPUs being faster, to Gemini being worse, to this being my idiosyncratic experience, all fit the same data, and are all plausible.

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> Gemini's UX ... is the worst of all the AI apps

Been using Gemini + OpenCode for the past couple weeks.

Suddenly, I get a "you need a Gemini Access Code license" error but when you go to the project page there is no mention of this or how to get the license.

You really feel the "We're the phone company and we don't care. Why? Because we don't have to." [0] when you use these Google products.

PS for those that don't get the reference: US phone companies in the 1970s had a monopoly on local and long distance phone service. Similar to Google for search/ads (really a "near" monopoly but close enough).

0 - https://vimeo.com/355556831

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I think this is 3.1 (3.0 Pro with the RL improv of 3.0 Flash).
But they probably decided to market it as Deep Think because why not charge more for it.

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It's a shame that it's not on OpenRouter. I hate platform lock-in, but the top-tier "deep think" models have been increasingly requiring the use of their own platform.

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OpenRouter is pretty great but I think litellm does a very good job and it's not a platform middle man, just a python library. That being said, I have tried it with the deep think models.

https://docs.litellm.ai/docs/

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Part of OpenRouter's appeal to me is precisely that it is a middle man. I don't want to create accounts on every provider, and juggle all the API keys myself. I suppose this increases my exposure, but I trust all these providers and proxies the same (i.e. not at all), so I'm careful about the data I give them to begin with.

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Unfortunately that's ending with mandatory-BYOK from the model vendors. They're starting to require that you BYOK to force you through their arbitrary+capricious onboarding process.

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Will still be able to use open weights models, which is what I use openrouter primarily for anyway

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The golden age is over.

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The problem here is that it looks like this is released with almost no real access. How are people using this without submitting to a $250/mo subscription?

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I have some very difficult to debug bugs that Opus 4.6 is failing at. Planning to pay $250 to see if it can solve those.

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People are paying for the subscriptions.

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I gather this isn't intended a consumer product. It's for academia and research institutions.

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You can but only via Gemini Ultra plan which you can buy or Gemini API with early access.

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I know, and neither of these options are feasible for me. I can't get the early access and I am not willing to drop $250 in order to just try their new model. By the time I can use it, the other two companies have something similar and I lose my interest in Google's models.

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I'm really interested in the 3D STL-from-photo process they demo in the video.

Not interested enough to pay $250 to try it out though.

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Is this not yet available for workspace users? I clicked on the Upgrade to Google AI Ultra button on the Gemini app and the page it takes me to still shows Gemini 2.5 Deep Think as an added feature. Wondering if that's just outdated info

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Unfortunately, it's only available in the Ultra subscription if it's available at all.

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It indeed departs from instructions pretty regularly. But I find it very useful and for the price it beats the world.

"The price" is the marginal price I am paying on top of my existing Google 1, YouTube Premium, and Google Fi subs, so basically nothing on the margin.

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