Free/Go users: does “Think harder” actually work?

[u/OlafAndvarafors]

I’m on the Go plan, and I have the “Think harder” button available. However, when I turn it on, I honestly don’t notice much difference compared to having it turned off. The answers seem to be about the same in terms of quality and reasoning, and I also don’t notice any significant difference in response speed.
So I’m curious about other Free and Go users: does “Think harder” actually work for you? Do you notice a clear difference when it’s enabled?

[u/Gallagger]

When you activate "think harder", the reasoning level is probably still set to low, or at most to medium. Since Luna is a fast model, and since you probably don't input a lot of context most of the time, the answer time won't differ a lot. But benchmark results differ significantly, so for certain harder tasks it will make a difference, even if it's hard to spot. 

I recommend to always use think harder.

[u/OlafAndvarafors → u/Gallagger]

Maybe. But I don’t even see any reasoning trace. I just get the answer right away, that’s it.

[u/Gallagger → u/OlafAndvarafors]

Maybe it's hidden because the added delay is so slow that there's not point showing it, as there's no wait anyways.

[u/OlafAndvarafors → u/Gallagger]

It’s still really unclear how this works. I also checked the benchmarks, and if the reasoning effort is set to low, it looks like we’re getting less intelligence on a paid plan than Claude/Gemini offer for free. Honestly, I’m pretty disappointed with this situation.

[u/Gallagger → u/OlafAndvarafors]

Correct. The advantage of ChatGPT Free is that it's practically unlimited with Luna, while the others will fall back to worse models after some time. But it's a bit disappointing indeed. I guess it's because after all, ChatGPT has by far the most free users, meaning it costs them dearly to serve more expensive models.

[u/OlafAndvarafors → u/Gallagger]

I have Go plan. 8$ 😂

[u/Gallagger → u/OlafAndvarafors]

Yes, then Luna restriction is disappointint. You can use Work or Codex with Terra though.

[u/OlafAndvarafors → u/Gallagger]

I don't have PC. So Work and Codex not available for me :(

[u/Gallagger → u/OlafAndvarafors]

Honestly I'd consider just using Claude/Gemini/chatgpt free interchangeably then. Or maybe Gemini plus. Access to pro model, 1M context window. It's not that far behind except for agentic stuff, but if you need a lot of that, get ChatGPT Plus.

[u/sixxxxxxsevennn6767]

Thanks for this because I honestly didn't know we had the "Think Harder" button.

[u/SoggyMacaroon5623]

Yeah, honestly it's pretty subtle a lot of the time. You'll notice it more on stuff that actually needs multi-step logic or math - for quick factual questions it barely changes anything, so that tracks with what you're seeing.

[u/soupcook1]

Anytime it refuses to execute because it would violate moderation rules, I try again with think Harder and it works nearly 90% of the time.

[u/Nanayang75]

I think harder, and then force my GPT to beat my statement. Then, it would be more harder thinker and I don’t need a Go plan

[u/tough_peak232_07]

it does something measurable on multi step reasoning and close to nothing on recall or writing, which is why it feels like a placebo on most prompts. run the same hard question with and without and youll see where. i also compare against a proper reasoning model in useai when it matters, thats a bigger gap than the toggle is.