Doubao, a flagship artificial intelligence app developed by Chinese tech company ByteDance, is testing a tiered subscription model that would charge users up to 500 yuan ($73) per month, a move that industry experts called a clear sign of Chinese AI large model developers pivoting from increasing user volume to generating revenue.

A recent service notice on Doubao's app store page outlined three monthly pricing tiers: a standard plan for 68 yuan, an advanced plan for 200 yuan and a professional plan for 500 yuan. ByteDance said the plans are still being tested and full details will be released through official channels, adding that some free services will also continue.

People familiar with the matter told China Daily that the paid features will target more complex, productivity-driven use cases, including automated PowerPoint generation, deep data analytics and film or video content creation.

Industry experts said the move reflects a broader shift across China's AI sector, where companies are racing to prove commercial viability after years of heavy investment.

According to statistics from global financial data and analytics platform Wind, AI companies performed differently in 2025. While 35 leading AI companies reported net profit growth of more than 50 percent year-on-year, 40 enterprises saw their revenues decline, highlighting the tension between rapid AI adoption and profitability.

Wang Peng, a researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said that Doubao's pricing experiment underscores a significant shift occurring in China's AI industry.

"After an initial phase of spending money to increase their size, developers are now under pressure to build sustainable revenue streams, shifting their focus from accumulating traffic to extracting value," he said.

The idea to charge users is driven by a surge in computing costs due to explosive demand. According to ByteDance cloud platform Volcano Engine, as of March, Doubao's underlying large model processed more than 120 trillion tokens per day, doubling in just three months and expanding roughly a thousandfold since its launch in May 2024.

Tokens are the fundamental units of data processed by AI models. The platform said the number of enterprise clients exceeding 1 trillion cumulative token usage is currently 140, compared with 100 at the end of last year.

Tan Dai, head of Volcano Engine, said in a previous news conference that the difference in token pricing essentially reflects a difference in capability.

"More advanced models carry higher costs per token, but they also generate greater economic value," Tan added.

Subscription models for AI services are already well established globally. Leading models such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini typically charge between $8 and $20 per month for entry-level plans, with premium tiers priced at $200 to $250.

"The shift to paid models signals a new competitive logic — not who can attract the largest number of users, but who can translate AI capability into measurable economic returns," said Wang, the researcher.

China's demand for AI data is growing rapidly, and it is beginning to reshape the economy. According to the latest figures from the National Data Administration, daily token usage soared from just over 1 trillion at the start of 2025 to 100 trillion by the end of the year.