Practical guides
How to fact-check a ChatGPT pricing answer
Keep the answer, then match its exact offer to the cited page and the vendor page.
To fact-check a ChatGPT pricing answer, keep the wording you saw and line that offer up with both the page it cites and the vendor's own page.
A provisional scan looks at as many as two responses and leaves every finding marked potential. A field sheet is the manual record for one claim.
Save the answer
Keep the prompt in full and the whole reply, including the figure. Note the clock time, the timezone, which product surface you were on, and every citation URL exactly as it was shown. A reply that arrives later cannot stand in for what the earlier reply said.
Hold onto the sentence around the figure and any qualifier next to it. An amount that shows up while the reply is talking about one plan is not a fair check against a second plan. The question, plus that surrounding language, is what tells you which offer the figure is supposed to describe.
The pricing-answer evidence guide is where the observation stays separate from a theory about the reply's origin.
Name the offer
On the sheet, name the vendor URL, the plan, the unit, the currency, the billing interval and the region. Write the figure and the sentence that states it. For every cited URL, say whether that cited sentence itself contains the figure.
Leave a field blank and the claim stays open. An amount with no unit cannot be paired with a per-user offer. Two pages that look alike can still be different offers if the region is missing. Write unknown. Do not fill in a selection or a condition you did not see.
Split the rate on the screen from the commitment written beside it. A monthly equivalent that sits next to an annual billing condition is a different claim from a month-to-month charge. If the page shows both, write both.
| Row | What to copy | What it can settle |
|---|---|---|
| Answer | Wording as seen, plus the date | The claim the reply actually made |
| Cited page | The terms in their sentence | Whether that sentence covers the same offer |
| Vendor page | Fields and conditions on screen | Which fields are still unknown |
Give the reply, the cited page and the vendor page their own rows. On each row put the text or the figure, the date, and the source that holds it. Then name the amount, the user unit and the billing condition. A number that shows up in more than one place is only the start. The unit and the conditions decide what the number is describing. If the source does not settle a field, leave it blank or mark it unknown.
Tie each conclusion back to the row that supports it. Look again at the prompt, the observation time and the offer you selected before you move a value onto another row. One source can settle one part of the question and leave another part open. A document can name a rate and still say nothing about eligibility, or about how a second document treats that rate. Keep the wording next to the value so someone else can follow the sheet.
If the cited sentence and the vendor page do not agree, write two observations: what the citation displayed, and what the vendor page displayed for the offer you named. Compare the amounts only after plan, unit, currency, interval and region are the same on both rows.
Look for a blank before you pick a label. A missing region, or a missing billing condition, keeps the claim open. In the fictional check below, USD 20 on an annual offer is a narrower claim than USD 20 month to month. A citation that does not support the reply still does not make the amount false.
Open both pages
OpenAI's web-search help, accessed 26 September 2026, supports one narrow check: a citation you can see is a page you can open. It does not show that every sentence near the link is backed by that page.
Open the citation and find the stated amount in its sentence. Then open the vendor URL for the same plan and write down the selection and the conditions that are visible. If the cited sentence has no amount, say that. Do not turn the absence into a finding that the amount itself is false.
The page might be about an older plan, another billing interval, or a different region. Note those differences first. If you cannot find the relevant content, or the page will not open, keep that limit in the result.
Choose one of four outcomes
Pick a label that matches what the sheet can support. The labels separate a historical offer, another valid offer, a source you cannot pin down, and a reply whose citation does not carry the claim.
| Label | What you can support |
|---|---|
| Superseded price | A dated earlier offer is superseded by evidence for the same scope. |
| Different valid offer | The amount belongs to another plan, unit, region or billing interval. |
| Source unclear | The source, or the offer context you need, cannot be established. |
| Answer unsupported | The cited material does not support the reply as stated. The amount is not automatically false. |
The old prices guide is the place for a dated comparison that needs matched scope. If the sheet cannot tell two outcomes apart, keep the uncertainty. Do not pick the sharper label.
Work through a fictional check
Picture a reply that says USD 20 per user per month for a plan that does not exist. The amount and the plan are invented. The citation shows USD 20 per user per month with annual billing. The vendor page shows that same annual offer and a separate monthly offer.
If the reply left out annual billing, the citation supports the amount in a narrower setting than the reply gave. Write down the missing condition and look at the prompt. A reader should not conclude that the monthly offer uses the same amount, or that the cited figure was made up.
Store the prompt, the reply and the sources together so a second person can repeat the comparison. If the citation opens as a different page later, record that later visit and leave the earlier page state open unless you captured it.
The reply is row one. USD, the amount, the per-user unit and the monthly expression say what the reply claims. The sentence does not say what billing commitment applies. Keep that omission in the observation. The example gives no region and no eligibility condition, so do not fill either from a later page. The fictional plan name is a matching field. It is not evidence that some other plan uses the same terms.
The citation is the next row. It carries the same amount, currency and user unit, and it pairs the monthly expression with annual billing. That supports a monthly equivalent under that condition. It does not support a guess that a customer can pay the same amount on a monthly contract. Capture the sentence, not only the link. A URL does not record what the page contained when you reviewed it.
The vendor page is the third row. In this example it confirms that the annual offer described by the citation appears there, and it also describes a separate monthly offer. The example gives no amount for that separate offer. Its existence is a prompt to check, not an invented gap and not a conclusion about how large a difference is. The source and the reply share a figure. The reply did not carry every condition that makes the figure usable.
Go back to the prompt. If it asked for an annual offer, the missing billing condition still belongs in the notes, and the question helps a reader read the reply. If it asked for a month-to-month charge, the citation does not establish that charge. If the prompt named no interval, write that ambiguity down too. Those are different checks. None of them needs a guess about how the assistant picked its citation.
A useful result has three short parts: the claim as stated, the evidence you found for the matched offer, and the field that is still missing or that differs. Say that the cited amount appears with annual billing and that the reply left that condition out. If the page changes later, add a new observation with its own date. Do not overwrite the original row. Do not use a later display to assert what the original source contained unless you kept a capture.
A reviewer can then decide whether a correction fits material they control. Keep any proposed wording off the evidence sheet. The proposed wording should carry only conditions the retained source supports, so a reader can follow the citation and see why each qualifier is there. If the source is unavailable, or the selection cannot be reproduced, say so. Do not present the issue as settled.
Questions
Does a citation prove the price is correct?
No. Open the cited page and check whether the relevant sentence supports the amount and the offer. Then compare the same offer with the vendor page.
What if a citation does not contain the amount?
Label the reply unsupported by that citation. Leave the amount itself open until other evidence establishes it.
Can a free scan confirm a discrepancy?
The provisional scan samples up to two responses and labels findings potential. A person has to review the comparison before a discrepancy can be called confirmed.