Summary
Samsung tests Galaxy AI Premium ($4.99/mo or $47.99/yr) to lock advanced AI features behind a paywall.
Power users face caps: heavy generative tools, on-device video gen and advanced Bixby automations may be gated.
Free alternatives: Google Gemini for assistant tasks, Google Photos edits, and MacroDroid or Tasker for automations.
Samsung is testing a Galaxy AI Premium plan that could cost $4.99 per month or $47.99 per year, according to early code leaks uncovered by SammyGuru. While Samsung hasn't announced anything official and the pricing could change, it doesn’t come as a surprise, as Samsung looks to offset heavy cloud computing costs.
This new paid subscription model, called Galaxy AI Premium, will put artificial intelligence features that have remained free since their introduction behind a paywall, with the intention of. Here’s every feature impacted by Samsung's proposed paywall, and how you can still access similar features for free.
What’s impacted by the Samsung AI paywall?
It's bad news for power users
This change will directly impact people who rely heavily on heavy-duty generative tools and automated workflows on their Galaxy devices. That means that your everyday AI ‘essential’ tools, such as Browsing Assist, Now Brief, Creative Studio, Smart Capture, the Samsung Keyboard integration, Photo Assist, and Personal Agent, will remain accessible on the free tier. However, these will come with strict limit caps — though no reports exist currently on what those limits will look like.
Once you run out of AI tokens, you’ll have to buy a credit pack to top up. Or, of course, you hand the conglomerate over more money by subscribing to its Max plan for a reported 4x the usage.
The most resource-intensive and advanced capabilities will be locked behind that Max paywall. Notably, this is rumored to include generating AI-powered videos directly from a phone, the Bixby Action feature designed to automate complex cross-app tasks, and the comprehensive Daily Briefing. For users who depend on Bixby automations to streamline daily device interactions or rely on local video generation tools for quick content creation, this means absorbing an ongoing monthly fee or drastically scaling back their workflow.
What alternatives exist to Samsung's AI?
For Samsung users who want to avoid those upcoming subscription costs, several free alternatives are available across the Android ecosystem.
The first is Google Gemini — which's already on Android devices. You can obviously pay for more usage, but the free tier is very good in terms of writing, summarising and acting as an assistant — it's a very capable alternative to Bixby's more advanced agentic features.
For photo editing and generative image work, standalone apps like Google Photos provide free editing tools and Magic Eraser functionality that's pretty much on par with what you get in the native Samsung suite. You can also use open source automation apps such as MacroDroid or Tasker to achieve the same sort of complex cross app triggers, without having to pay a corporate fee to access the automation.
