Number of ChatGPT Users (March 2025)
OpenAI’s ChatGPT took off in record-breaking fashion.
The artificial intelligence chatbot picked up millions of users in a very short space of time.
Today, ChatGPT is the generic name for several large language models from OpenAI, including GPT-3.5, GPT-4o, and GPT-4.5.
In this up-to-date article, we’ll explore just how many users ChatGPT currently has and other relevant data about the fast-growing AI platform.
Top ChatGPT User Statistics
- In just 5 days, ChatGPT surpassed 1 million users.
- ChatGPT.com gets approximately 5.19 billion visits per month.
- Around 62% of ChatGPT's social media traffic comes via YouTube.
- Around 15% of ChatGPT's users are American.
- 64.03% of ChatGPT users are on a low income.
- OpenAI hopes to reach 1 billion users by the end of 2025.
How Many ChatGPT Users Are There?
Based on February 2025 data from Semrush, ChatGPT ranks #8 in the world's most visited websites.
According to Brad Lightcap, OpenAI's Chief Operating Officer, ChatGPT has 400 million weekly users. It plans to hit 1 billion users by the end of 2025.
| Month | Weekly Users |
| November 2022 | 1 million |
| January 2023 | 30 million |
| November 2023 | 100 million |
| December 2024 | 300 million |
| February 2025 | 400 million |
Sources: Reuters, Semrush, CNBC, The Verge, Techerati
ChatGPT User Demographics
64.32% of ChatGPT users are male, and 35.68% are female.
More than 45% of its users are under the age of 24.
One2Target allows us to break down ChatGPT users according to their socioeconomic status:
- 41.21% of users live in a household with 3–4 people
- 35.4% are in full-time employment
- 64.03% of ChatGPT users are on a low income
Sources: Semrush
ChatGPT's Initial Growth
According to OpenAI, ChatGPT acquired 1 million users just 5 days after launching in November 2022.
By comparison, it took Instagram approximately 2.5 months to reach 1 million downloads. And Netflix had to wait around 3.5 years to reach 1 million users.
Here’s a breakdown of the approximate time taken to reach 1 million users for various online services:
|
Online Service |
Launch Year |
Time Taken to Reach 1 Million Users |
|
Threads |
2023 |
1 hour |
|
ChatGPT |
2022 |
5 days |
|
Instagram*** |
2010 |
2.5 months |
|
Spotify |
2008 |
5 months |
|
Dropbox |
2008 |
7 months |
|
|
2004 |
10 months |
|
Foursquare*** |
2009 |
13 months |
|
|
2006 |
2 years |
|
Airbnb** |
2008 |
2.5 years |
|
Kickstarter* |
2009 |
2.5 years |
|
Netflix |
1999 |
3.5 years |
* 1 million backers ** 1 million nights booked *** 1 million downloads
Incredibly, it’s estimated that ChatGPT hit 100 million monthly active users in January 2023. This made it the fastest-growing application in history until Threads took that crown in July 2023.
To put that into perspective, TikTok took 9 months to reach 100 million users. And Instagram took 2.5 years.
ChatGPT User Growth
ChatGPT's traffic and usage have skyrocketed since its launch.
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Here's how ChatGPT monthly visits progressed over time:
| Month | Number of Visits | Change Over Previous Month | Change Over Previous Month (%) |
| December 2022 | 264.7 million | - | - |
| January 2023 | 683.2 million | ↑ 418.5 million | ↑ 158.10% |
| February 2023 | 1.3 billion | ↑ 616.8 million | ↑ 90.28% |
| March 2023 | 1.9 billion | ↑ 600 million | ↑ 46.15% |
| April 2023 | 2.3 billion | ↑ 400 million | ↑ 21.05% |
| April 2024 | 2.8 billion | ↑ 500 million | ↑ 21.74% |
| November 2024 | 4.8 billion | ↑ 2 billion | ↑ 71.43% |
| December 2024 | 4.8 billion | - | - |
| January 2025 | 4.7 billion | ↓ 0.1 billion | ↓ 2.08% |
| February 2025 | 5.2 billion | ↑ 0.5 billion | ↑ 10.64% |
Source: Semrush
ChatGPT User Stats
According to Semrush figures in March 2025:
- ChatGPT.com is visited approximately 5.2 billion times each month
- 601.5 million of those are unique visitors
- ChatGPT.com has a bounce rate of 38.70%.
- Each visitor views an average of 2.77 pages per visit
- Each user spends an average of 8 minutes and 13 seconds on the site.
Here’s how ChatGPT compares to other popular websites in terms of monthly visits and user interaction:
|
Website |
Total Visits |
Bounce Rate |
Pages per Visit |
Average Visit Duration |
Insights |
|
ChatGPT |
5.2 billion |
38.70% |
2.77 |
8 mins 13 secs | |
|
|
139.9 billion |
37.73% |
5.01 |
12 mins 08 secs | |
|
YouTube |
78.6 billion |
30.77% |
8.77 |
24 mins 28 secs | |
|
|
12.7 billion |
45.99% |
8.47 |
14 mins 14 secs | |
|
|
7.5 billion |
49.91% |
10.07 |
12 mins 42 secs | |
|
X |
4.8 billion |
43.33% |
8.12 |
14 mins 39 sec | |
|
Baidu |
1.3 billion |
25.93% |
6.17 |
12 mins 51 secs | |
|
Wikipedia |
7 billion |
60.81% |
2.6 |
8 mins 44 secs | |
|
Yahoo |
3.2 billion |
43.81% |
4.2 |
11 mins 51 sec | |
|
|
3.8 billion |
67.70% |
3.79 |
31 mins 49 secs | |
|
Amazon |
3.1 billion |
38.34% |
6.98 |
10 mins 38 secs |
Figures above are accurate as of March 13, 2025.
Source: Semrush
ChatGPT Traffic
Top Marketing Channels
Around 3 in 4 (79.77%) ChatGPT visits are direct.
Referral traffic is the second-most popular way to access ChatGPT (9.36% of traffic).
Here’s a breakdown of the most popular ChatGPT marketing channels:
|
Rank |
Marketing Channel |
Proportion of Traffic |
|
1 |
Direct |
79.77% |
|
2 |
Referral |
9.36% |
|
3 |
Organic Search |
9.23% |
|
4 |
Organic Social |
0.98% |
|
5 |
Paid Search |
0.44% |
|
6 |
|
0.19% |
|
7 |
Display Ads |
0.03% |
You can see a full journey breakdown of ChatGPT traffic with Semrush's traffic analytics.
Social Media Traffic
In terms of social media traffic, YouTube is responsible for almost 2 in 5 visits (39.81%).
Here’s how other social media networks stack up:
|
Rank |
Social Network |
Proportion of Social Traffic |
|
1 |
YouTube |
39.81% |
|
2 |
|
18.98% |
|
3 |
|
7.38% |
|
4 |
|
5.15% |
|
5 |
|
4.52% |
|
- |
Others (combined) |
24.15% |
Top Keyword Traffic
The most commonly searched keyword is "chat gpt" with 35.54% of the searches per month.
This is followed by "chatgpt" with 22.08% of monthly searches.
Here's a breakdown of the most commonly used keywords that users use to find ChatGPT.
|
Rank |
Keyword |
Monthly Traffic |
|
1 | chat gpt | 35.54% |
|
2 | chatgpt | 22.08% |
|
3 | chat gbt | 7.10% |
|
4 | chat got | 2.59% |
|
5 | chat gtp | 2.59% |
Source: Semrush
ChatGPT Search
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT search, there was speculation that it could eat into Google's market share.
According to the latest SEO statistics, that has not happened yet.
It's estimated that ChatGPT received 37.5 million searches per day in 2024, while Google received 14 billion.
Between 2023-2024, the number of Google searches increased by 21.6%, and its market share remains above 90%.
Source: SparkToro
ChatGPT Subscriptions and Revenue
ChatGPT is free to use.
It has 10 million paying subscribers (Plus, Team, and Pro) and an additional 1 million commercial plan users.
From its paid subscriptions, the company makes $2.7 billion per year. This is forecasted to reach $4 billion by the end of 2025.
Source: Moomoo
ChatGPT by Region
No one country has more ChatGPT users than the US (14.78%).
Second-placed India (8.85%) has less than half as many ChatGPT users.
Together, the top five countries make up around 36% of all ChatGPT users
Here’s the breakdown of ChatGPT users by region:
|
Rank |
Country |
Proportion of ChatGPT Users |
|
1 |
US |
14.78% |
|
2 |
India |
8.85% |
|
3 | Kenya | 4.81% |
|
4 | Germany | 4.09% |
|
5 | Brazil | 3.37% |
|
- |
Others (combined) |
64.2% |
Source: Semrush
ChatGPT by Age
According to YouGov, 17% of 30 to 44-year-olds have used ChatGPT.
Similarly, 15% of 18 to 29-year-olds have used ChatGPT to generate text.
Around 1 in 10 (9%) of 45 to 64-year-olds and 5% of 65+ year-olds use ChatGPT.
However, far more people are aware of ChatGPT:
|
Level of ChatGPT Awareness |
Age | |||
|
18 to 29 |
30 to 44 |
45 to 64 |
65+ | |
|
I’ve used it myself to generate text |
15% |
17% |
9% |
5% |
|
I’ve seen text generated for someone else, but haven’t used it myself |
48% |
46% |
27% |
30% |
|
I’ve never used or never seen anyone else use it |
20% |
31% |
55% |
59% |
|
Not sure |
17% |
6% |
8% |
6% |
Source: YouGov
OpenAI Model History
OpenAI launched Generative Pre-trained Transformer 1 (GPT-1) in June 2018.
The first model, called "ChatGPT", was launched in November 2022.
Here's a breakdown of key OpenAI models:
| Model | Release Date | Context Window | Max Output Tokens | Knowledge Cutoff | Input | Output | Reasoning |
| GPT-4.5 | 2025 | 128,000 | 16,384 | Oct 2023 | Text, Image | Text | No |
| GPT-o3-mini | 2024 | 200,000 | 100,000 | Oct 2023 | Text | Text | Yes |
| GPT-o1-mini | 2024 | 128,000 | 65,536 | Oct 2023 | Text | Text | Yes |
| GPT-o1 | 2024 | 200,000 | 100,000 | Oct 2023 | Text, Image | Text | Yes |
| GPT-4o-audio | 2024 | 128,000 | 16,384 | Oct 2023 | Text, audio | Text, audio | No |
| GPT-4o-mini | 2024 | 128,000 | 16,384 | Oct 2023 | Text, Image | Text | No |
| GPT-4o | 2024 | 128,000 | 16,384 | Oct 2023 | Text, Image | Text | No |
| GPT-4 | 2023 | 8,192 | 8,192 | Dec 2023 | Text | Text | No |
Source: OpenAI, Wikipedia, OpenAI
Future of ChatGPT
ChatGPT’s overnight success has blown previous user growth figures out of the water.
Based on current data, the AI chatbot’s success looks set to continue:
- OpenAI is working on GPT-5, which is due to be released in 2025
- GPT-5 is expected to combine multiple OpenAI models into one
- Users on the free ChatGPT subscription will get unlimited access to GPT-5 when it's available
- OpenAI is rumored to be considering a new paid tier that will cost $2,000 per month
For more ChatGPT statistics, take a look at:
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Written By
Fabio is a research associate at Exploding Topics. Since 2021, Fabio has researched, written, and edited articles for the Explo... Read more