Since Samsung launched Galaxy AI, the related features have remained free, but the company left itself an out back then: it might charge for them in the future. Now that step looks like it may actually be happening.
According to SammyGuru, Samsung is preparing a subscription service called "Galaxy AI Premium," priced at $4.99 per month (about 33.3 Chinese yuan). Paying for it unlocks more usage quota and moves some AI capabilities into the paid tier. To that end, Samsung is also organizing an early access program: participants will get a higher quota, be able to see exactly how many times they have used each feature, and receive a full refund of the fees they pay during the test period—though they must actively sign up to join.
Free still exists, but now it has a ceiling The standard version of Galaxy AI remains free, with Browsing Assist, Now Brief, Creative Studio, Smart Screenshot, Samsung Keyboard, Photo Assist, and Personal Agent all still included. But even the free features are starting to be capped by number of uses or quota—once you run out, you either buy additional credits or upgrade to the Max plan to raise your quota to four times that of the standard version. What has clearly been moved into the paid zone includes on-device AI video generation, cross-app automation powered by Bixby Action, and the daily briefing; subscribers also get higher limits across all features.
Annual payment is $47.99 (about 320.6 yuan). The unit price for additional credits has not been announced, and the official launch date is still up in the air. But the logic is not hard to see through: generative AI consumes computing power, and computing power costs real money. As model usage scales up, Samsung clearly does not want to shoulder that bill alone—passing the cost on to users is probably only a matter of time.
