To connect a bank account to ChatGPT, you use ChatGPT’s Plaid connection: open Finances, choose Connect with Plaid, sign in to your bank inside Plaid’s window, and pick which accounts to share. It works only in the US, on Plus and Pro plans. ChatGPT gets read access to balances, transactions, investments and liabilities. It cannot move money or see full account numbers. Revoking takes two steps: disconnect in ChatGPT, then disconnect or delete in Plaid Portal.

How we checked this

We used OpenAI’s Finances in ChatGPT help article, the May 15, 2026 launch post with its June 25 update, and OpenAI’s help pages on plans and the September 2026 Pro pause. On the Plaid side we used the End User Privacy Policy (effective February 28, 2025), the Plaid Portal page and three Plaid consumer help articles on disconnecting and deleting data. Facts checked on September 24, 2026. Finances is new and still rolling out, so availability and menu names may change.

Who can use it, and what does it cost?

OpenAI first released Finances on May 15, 2026 as a preview for Pro subscribers in the US, on web and iOS only. On June 25, 2026, OpenAI updated the launch post to say the feature “is now available to Plus and Pro users in the U.S. on web, iOS, and Android.” The help center article says the same thing and adds that the rollout is gradual, so an eligible account might not see Finances yet. If you are on the Free or Go plan, it is not listed for you.

What you pay for Finances is your plan. Plus costs $20 a month, as 9to5Mac reported when Plus got access. Pro comes in two tiers: $100 a month and $200 a month, and the difference is usage limits, not features. To compare those costs with other assistants over a full year, see our AI subscription cost calculator.

One correction to a claim that has been going around: OpenAI did not pause all Pro sign-ups. Its cancellation help page says that as of September 10, 2026 it is “temporarily pausing new sign-ups and upgrades to the ChatGPT Pro $200 plan,” and that “new or existing ChatGPT Pro $100 subscriptions are not affected.” Since Plus already includes Finances, the pause doesn’t stop anyone from using the feature.

Plan Finances (US) Monthly price Sign-ups open?
Free, Go No Yes
Plus Yes, since June 25, 2026 $20 Yes
Pro $100 Yes $100 Yes
Pro $200 Yes $200 New sign-ups paused since Sept 10, 2026

How the connection works, step by step

According to OpenAI’s help article, the setup has four steps. Open Finances in ChatGPT and select Get started. Select Connect with Plaid. Sign in and choose the financial institutions you want to connect. Return to ChatGPT. You can also start from any conversation by typing “@Finances, connect my accounts.”

You don’t give your bank password to ChatGPT. The sign-in happens inside Plaid’s flow, and Plaid’s own privacy policy says that when you provide login data, you give Plaid “permission and authority to act on your behalf to access and transmit data to and from your financial institution.” So on the privacy side, you are dealing with two companies. OpenAI’s policies cover what ChatGPT does with the data. Plaid’s cover what Plaid collects and keeps.

After you authenticate, ChatGPT syncs and categorizes your data. OpenAI says this “usually takes a few minutes, but in rare cases it may take several hours.” Sync then continues automatically, and the Finances page shows the last sync time and flags any account that needs attention, for example because your login changed or the bank wants you to confirm something.

Plaid says it supports more than 12,000 institutions, from checking and savings to crypto wallets and investments. A successful connection doesn’t guarantee a complete picture, though. OpenAI’s help article warns that an institution “may share balances but not full transaction history, investment holdings, loan details, APRs, due dates, or other fields.” If your dashboard looks thin, the likely cause is that the bank shared only part of your data, and the setup itself is fine.

What ChatGPT can see, and what it cannot do

OpenAI’s launch post puts the scope this way: “ChatGPT can access your balances, transactions, investments, and liabilities to help visualize your finances or answer your questions. It cannot see full account numbers or make any changes to your accounts.”

The help article lists what ChatGPT cannot do: move money, pay bills, change account settings, make trades, change retirement contributions, open or close accounts, file taxes, or act as your financial, legal, tax or investment adviser. For everyday purposes, that makes the connection read-only. ChatGPT can tell you that you have three streaming subscriptions. You still cancel them yourself.

The dashboard is built from that read access. Depending on what your institutions share, it can show spending by category, spending this month against recent trends, upcoming payments, subscriptions, bills, net worth over time, portfolio distribution and a daily market update for equity holdings. OpenAI notes that “widgets are shown only when ChatGPT has enough connected data to generate them.”

There is also a second layer of data that doesn’t come from your bank at all: financial memories. If you tell ChatGPT “my rent is split with my partner” or “I still owe my parents for a loan,” it can save that as a financial memory and use it in later conversations. These memories are stored separately from synced account data, and you delete them separately too (see below).

Read-only access still carries risk. Anyone who gets into your ChatGPT account can read your balances, spending and debts. OpenAI’s launch post recommends turning on multi-factor authentication for that reason. For a broader look at what an assistant can infer from this kind of data, read our privacy walkthrough of what your AI assistant sees.

What Plaid collects on its side

Plaid’s privacy policy applies to Plaid’s own handling of your data. It explicitly says it “does not cover what developers of the apps you use do with your data.” The policy lists what Plaid may collect, depending on the product and what your institution makes available: account data such as account and routing numbers, balances, credit and loan details, investment holdings and cost basis, transaction details including payee and location, and identifiers such as name, email, phone and address.

That list is broader than what ChatGPT says it sees. For example, ChatGPT “cannot see full account numbers,” but Plaid’s policy lists account numbers among the data it may collect from an institution. The two statements don’t contradict each other. They describe two different companies holding different slices of the same connection.

The policy also lists how Plaid uses data. That includes providing and improving its services, fraud prevention, and “Develop Insights,” which the policy says can draw on “your transaction data, other financial data, data about which financial accounts you have connected to which apps.” Plaid’s portal page says it does not “sell or rent your financial information to outside companies.” If Plaid’s uses of your data matter to you, read the policy’s sections on sharing and retention in full, because we only summarize them here.

What OpenAI keeps, and for how long

The launch post and the help article say the same thing about retention: “Once disconnected, your synced account data will be deleted from OpenAI’s systems within 30 days.” That covers the data Plaid delivered, meaning the transactions, balances and holdings that fed the dashboard.

Three things are not covered by that 30-day deletion:

  1. Conversation history. OpenAI says disconnecting “will not affect financial information in your ChatGPT conversation history.” If you asked “why was my Amazon spending so high in March?” and ChatGPT answered with figures, that exchange stays in your history until you delete the conversation.
  2. Financial memories. You view and delete these from the Finances page (via the three-dot menu) or in Settings. Deleting your accounts does not clear them automatically, according to the documentation.
  3. Model training. Finances conversations “follow the same model training settings you choose across ChatGPT.” Check Settings > Data controls before you connect if you haven’t looked at that setting.

About temporary chats: the help article says that in a temporary chat, “ChatGPT won’t access your connected financial accounts.” However, OpenAI’s release notes for August 27, 2026 introduced “personalized” temporary chats that can use memories and plugins. Treat only the default, non-personalized temporary chat as the one that can’t see your accounts.

How to revoke access from both sides

Revoking properly means acting in two places, because each company’s controls cover only its own systems.

In ChatGPT. You have two options. To remove a single institution, go to the Accounts tab on the Finances page, where you can see each account’s status and remove it. To disconnect Finances entirely, go to Settings > Apps > Finances, or disconnect from the Finances home page. OpenAI says disconnecting “removes your connected financial data from ChatGPT,” with deletion from its systems within 30 days. Then delete financial memories and any conversations containing figures you don’t want kept.

In Plaid Portal. Plaid’s help center describes two actions at my.plaid.com, and they do different things:

  • Disconnect app: log in, open the Overview tab, select the app, scroll to Manage connections, choose Disconnect app, then select the institution and confirm. Plaid says this “stops future data sharing only. The app may still keep data it has already collected.”
  • Delete from Plaid: under Accounts, pick the institution, choose Delete from Plaid, review, check connected apps, and type “delete” to confirm. Plaid says it will “remove the account data from our systems and stop sharing any new information with connected apps.” This also cuts off every other app that uses that institution through Plaid, not only ChatGPT.

If a connection doesn’t show up in Portal, Plaid says some of its newer product experiences can’t be managed there, and it points you to its Privacy Request Form or privacy@plaid.com. Plaid also notes that it “may retain some information after the completion of the data deletion request, as permitted or required by applicable law.”

A sensible order: disconnect in ChatGPT first, since that starts OpenAI’s 30-day deletion. Then check Plaid Portal to confirm ChatGPT no longer appears as a connected app, and disconnect it there if it still does. Delete the institution from Plaid only if no other app you rely on needs it.

Does it work outside the US?

No. OpenAI’s documentation limits Finances to “the U.S.” The help article, the launch post and its June update all say so. The launch post mentioned a goal of making the experience “available to everyone,” but in context that sentence was about moving from Pro to Plus, and it isn’t a promise of international availability.

If you live outside the US, you can still describe your finances to ChatGPT in a normal conversation, or paste in figures yourself. Our 20 prompts for budgeting with an AI are written to work without a live bank connection.

Where it goes wrong

  • Spending totals that count transfers as spending. OpenAI’s help article says a breakdown may be off “if transfers, credit card payments, reimbursements, or duplicate pending transactions are counted as spending,” and adds that “AI can make mistakes.” If you pay your card from checking and both accounts are connected, check whether the payment is being counted twice. More errors like this are collected in our guide to where AI gets money wrong.
  • Partial data from some institutions. Some banks share balances but not full history or loan details, so the dashboard can look complete when it isn’t.
  • Assuming one disconnect deletes everything. Disconnecting in ChatGPT doesn’t delete your conversations or financial memories. Disconnecting in Plaid Portal doesn’t delete data ChatGPT already holds. You need both steps, plus the manual deletions.
  • A weak ChatGPT login. With accounts connected, your ChatGPT account shows your whole financial picture. Turn on MFA, and don’t share the account.
  • Treating answers as advice. OpenAI states that ChatGPT “is not a fiduciary, registered investment adviser, broker-dealer, tax preparer, or law firm.” For decisions with tax, legal or investment consequences, OpenAI’s own guidance is to consult a qualified professional, and we agree.

As a third-party explainer from Build Fast with AI put it, the “cannot move money” limit matters less than the fact that a detailed financial profile will exist in OpenAI’s systems. Whether that is acceptable depends on how you weigh it, and connecting is your decision. This guide lays out what the documents say so you can decide.

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