ByteDance's Doubao AI assistant rolls out paid tiers from $9.40/month

ByteDance's AI assistant Doubao is set to introduce paid subscription tiers in late June, as reported by 36Kr. The move comes alongside feature updates announced at the company's upcoming Force conference. Doubao has listed three subscription tiers on the Apple App Store: a Standard plan at 68 yuan ($9.40) per month, an Enhanced plan at 200 yuan ($27.70) per month, and a Professional plan at 500 yuan ($69.20) per month. The PC and mobile versions are still completing billing system integration, expected to take about one month. Paid features will center on advanced productivity tools such as presentation generation, data analysis, and video production, while basic chatbot services will remain free.

If rolled out as planned, Doubao will expand paid use cases in the third quarter by integrating e-commerce-related features and supporting traffic generation for ByteDance's Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok). This will be followed by a more stable operating phase in the fourth quarter. ByteDance's strategy mirrors other AI assistants like ChatGPT and Claude, offering tiered subscriptions to monetize advanced capabilities while keeping a free tier for basic interactions. The pricing positions Doubao competitively in the Chinese market, where local AI assistants from Baidu (ERNIE Bot) and Alibaba (Tongyi Qianwen) also explore subscription models.