ChatGPT Plus free month offers are being shown to some subscribers who try to cancel, raising fresh questions about OpenAI's tactics as user anger grows over its defence partnership in the United States.
A number of ChatGPT Plus customers say that when they head to the account page and click to cancel, they are suddenly offered an extra month of the paid plan at no charge. Posts on Reddit and other platforms describe the same pattern: begin the cancellation flow, hit the subscription management screen, and a prompt appears inviting you to stay for one more free month.
Users stress that the ChatGPT Plus free month deal does not show up for everyone, and there is no official explanation of who qualifies or how long the promotion will run. One Reddit user reported that their renewal date was pushed from early March to 1 April after accepting the offer, effectively extending access without paying.
The timing of the ChatGPT Plus free month promotion is drawing attention because it overlaps with a sharp backlash to OpenAI's work with the US Department of Defense, now rebranded as the Department of War under President Donald Trump's administration. Market-intelligence firm Sensor Tower told TechCrunch that US uninstalls of the ChatGPT mobile app jumped 295 per cent day-over-day on Saturday, 28 February, far above the typical 9 per cent uninstall rate seen over the previous month.
Separate reports suggest one-star reviews for the ChatGPT app surged over the same weekend, while five-star ratings sank, indicating that frustrated users are not just leaving quietly but also voicing their concerns in public app-store feedback.
Competitor Anthropic is moving quickly to capture disillusioned users with tools that make it easier to leave ChatGPT. The company has expanded Claude's memory feature to free users and launched a memory import tool that lets people transfer saved context and chat histories from rival AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.
The process relies on a pre-written prompt that users paste into their existing chatbot, then paste the generated output back into Claude's settings so it can rebuild their preferences in one go. Anthropic has also said it will not enter into a defence partnership on the terms currently proposed, a stance that appears to be resonating with some users who are wary of military AI projects.
For now, the ChatGPT Plus free month offer might persuade some subscribers to delay cancelling and give the service another chance. Yet the steep rise in app deletions, angry reviews and increased interest in alternatives like Claude suggest that OpenAI is grappling with a broader trust problem that cannot be solved by a short-term discount alone.