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Gemini vs ChatGPT vs Claude: plans, limits and prices

ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro cost $20 a month and Google AI Pro $19.99. What each free and paid plan includes, its limits and API prices, as of October 2026.

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ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude each have a free plan and a main paid plan at about $20 a month: ChatGPT Plus costs $20, Google AI Pro $19.99, and Claude Pro $20 a month or $17 a month billed annually, as of October 27, 2026. The plans for heavy users cost $100, $200 or $500 a month for ChatGPT Pro, $99.99 or $199.99 for Google AI Ultra, and $100 or $200 for Claude Max. None of the three publishes a fixed message count for its chat app.

How we built this: plan prices, limits and features come from OpenAI’s, Google’s and Anthropic’s own pricing pages and help centers, read on October 27, 2026. ChatGPT’s dollar prices come from OpenAI’s help center and ChatGPT Learn pricing page, because its main pricing page showed local currency from our location. API prices come from our AI model data, checked October 25, 2026, and match the three API pricing pages on October 27. We haven’t used these apps for this comparison, and this guide doesn’t rate which model gives better answers.

How much does each plan cost per month?

Tier ChatGPT (OpenAI) Gemini (Google) Claude (Anthropic)
Free $0 $0 $0
Low-cost plan Go, $8/mo Google AI Plus, $4.99/mo None
Main paid plan Plus, $20/mo Google AI Pro, $19.99/mo Pro, $20/mo monthly, or $17/mo billed annually ($200 up front)
Heavy use Pro, $100, $200 or $500/mo Google AI Ultra, $99.99 or $199.99/mo Max 5x, $100/mo; Max 20x, $200/mo
Small teams Business, $20/user/mo billed annually or $25 monthly, 2+ users Gemini Enterprise Business, from $21/seat/mo Team: Standard seat $20/mo billed annually or $25 monthly; Premium seat $100 or $125

What the table doesn’t show:

  • Billing terms. OpenAI says Go, Plus and Pro are billed monthly only. Anthropic offers an annual price on Pro; Max is monthly. Google’s plan page lists monthly prices and says there are no refunds for partial billing periods.
  • Google bundles storage. Google AI Plus includes 400 GB of cloud storage, AI Pro 5 TB and Ultra 20 TB or more. AI Pro also includes YouTube Premium Lite, and Ultra the YouTube Premium individual plan.
  • Claude Max and Team include API credits: $100 a month on Max 5x and $200 on Max 20x. Team plans get $20 per Standard seat and $100 per Premium seat, pooled and capped at $500 a month.

Worked example: a year on the $20 plan

  • ChatGPT Plus: 12 × $20 = $240
  • Google AI Pro: 12 × $19.99 = $239.88
  • Claude Pro, paid monthly: 12 × $20 = $240. Paid annually: $200 up front, which is $40 less.

What do you get on the free plans?

Free plan ChatGPT Free Gemini, no plan Claude Free
Models A Luna model and GPT-5 Thinking Mini; no Sol or Astra Flash-Lite Sonnet and Haiku; no Opus or Fable
Chat limits “Unlimited” everyday text chats, subject to abuse guardrails “Standard limits,” refreshed every 5 hours until a weekly limit Limits reset on a rolling five-hour window
Context window 27K tokens in Instant (about 12 pages of input); reasoning “varies” 32K tokens Up to 1M, varies by model
File uploads 3 a day; up to 5 files per project Up to 10 files per prompt; 100 MB per file, 2 GB per video Up to 20 files per chat, 500 MB each
Deep research Limited Yes No (Research starts on Pro)
Image generation Limited Yes No
Also included Voice, search, limited Codex Gemini Live, Canvas, 15 GB storage Web search, memory, up to 5 projects

Of the three free plans, only ChatGPT’s calls its text chats unlimited, though OpenAI adds that uploads, image generation, voice, data analysis and other tools have separate limits. Gemini and Claude meter free use and reset it every five hours.

OpenAI’s pages disagree on the free model: the pricing page lists GPT-6 Luna for Free and Go, while the help center says they receive GPT-5.6 Luna. Both say Free and Go don’t get Sol.

Gemini also caps uploads by length: 5 minutes of video and 10 minutes of audio in total, unless you’re on AI Pro or Ultra.

What does the $20 plan get you?

Main paid plan ChatGPT Plus ($20) Google AI Pro ($19.99) Claude Pro ($20, or $17 annually)
Models in chat GPT-6 Sol at Instant, Medium and High thinking Gemini 4 Argon, plus Google’s Pro and Flash models Opus, Sonnet and Haiku; Fable only with usage credits
Usage vs. free No multiple published 4x Free At least 5x Free per five-hour session
Context window 54K tokens in Instant (about 40 pages of input); 256K in reasoning (about 320 pages) 1M tokens 1M tokens on Fable 5.1, Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5
Files Up to 80 files every 3 hours; 25 files per project 10 per prompt; video up to 1 hour and audio up to 3 hours 20 per chat, 500 MB each; PDFs up to 1,000 pages
Research Deep research Deep Research Research
Images and video Image generation, including with Thinking Image and video generation; 1,000 Google Flow credits No image generation; diagrams and charts built in HTML and SVG
Coding agent Codex Jules, plus entry-level limits in Google Antigravity Claude Code
Also included Projects, scheduled tasks, custom GPTs, Sites 5 TB storage; Gemini in Gmail, Docs and Vids; YouTube Premium Lite Projects (Free allows 5); Claude in Chrome and Microsoft 365

A few details sit behind the table:

  • ChatGPT Plus doesn’t get OpenAI’s Pro model in chat. OpenAI’s help center lists Extra High and Pro thinking as “Not included” on Plus. GPT-6 Pro, powered by GPT-6 Astra, is in chat on the Pro $100 and Pro $200 plans, Business and Enterprise. Plus does get GPT-6 Astra in ChatGPT Work and Codex.
  • Argon needs Pro or Ultra. Google’s plan page lists Gemini 4 Argon under AI Pro and Ultra only. Google AI Plus ($4.99) has the Flash model, twice Free’s usage, a 128K context window and video generation.
  • ChatGPT Go ($8) keeps the free model. OpenAI says Go has the same Luna model as Free, with more uploads and image creation and a 54K Instant and 256K reasoning context window. ChatGPT’s pricing page says Go “may include ads.”
  • Claude has no plan between Free and Pro.

The context window is how much one conversation can hold, in tokens. OpenAI notes that the part left for your own input is smaller, because instructions, memory and reasoning use some of it.

How do the usage limits work?

All three companies cap use by plan, and none publishes a message count for chat.

ChatGPT. Free and Go have unlimited everyday text chats, with separate limits on tools. For Plus, OpenAI says subscriptions “may include usage limits such as message caps, especially during high demand.” At a Thinking limit, ChatGPT may continue with another model. For Codex and ChatGPT Work, OpenAI does publish ranges: on Plus, 15 to 160 local messages per five hours on GPT-6.1 Sol and 5 to 45 on GPT-6 Astra, with weekly limits possible. OpenAI also says “a Pro subscription does not include unlimited use of the GPT-6 Pro model.” Pro 200 includes more usage than Pro 100, and Pro 500 the most.

Gemini. Google calls its limits compute-based: they depend on how complex your prompt is, which features you use and how long the chat runs. They refresh every five hours until you reach a weekly limit. Plus gives 2x Free’s usage, Pro 4x, and Ultra 5x or 20x AI Pro’s. With a Google AI plan, you can carry on with Flash-Lite after a limit, or buy AI credits to extend it.

Claude. Every plan resets on a rolling five-hour window, and paid plans add a weekly limit. Anthropic says “there’s no fixed message count.” Pro gives at least 5x Free’s usage per session, and Max 5x or 20x Pro’s. On Team plans, a Standard seat gives more than Pro, and a Premium seat 5x a Standard seat. Chat on the web, desktop and mobile and Claude Code all draw from the same pool. When you reach a limit on a paid plan, you can turn on usage credits, billed at standard API rates.

The multiples can’t be compared across companies. Google AI Ultra at $199.99 works out to 4 × 20 = 80 times Gemini’s free usage, and Claude Max 20x to at least 5 × 20 = 100 times Claude’s, but neither company says how much free usage is.

What do the flagship models cost on the API?

The API is billed per token, separately from the apps. OpenAI says API usage “is separate and billed independently” from Plus; of the plans in this guide, only Claude Max and Team list API credits.

Model Maker Input Output Cached input Context window
GPT-6 Astra OpenAI $10 $50 $1 1,050,000
GPT-6.1 Sol OpenAI $2 $10 $0.10 1,050,000
GPT-6 Luna OpenAI $0.10 $0.50 $0.01 1,050,000
Gemini 4 Argon Google $2 ($4 from Dec 1) $10 ($20 from Dec 1) $0.10 ($0.20 from Dec 1) 1,048,576, input and output combined
Gemini 3.8 Flash Google $0.75 ($1.50 from Jan 1, 2027) $3.75 ($7.50 from Jan 1, 2027) $0.075 1,048,576
Claude Fable 5.1 Anthropic $10 $50 $0.25 1,000,000
Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic $4 $20 $0.20 1,000,000
Claude Sonnet 5.5 Anthropic $2 $10 $0.10 1,000,000
Claude Haiku 5.5 Anthropic $0.10 $0.50 $0.01 1,000,000

USD per million tokens, standard tier, from our model data checked October 25, 2026. OpenAI’s prices are for prompts up to 272K tokens; longer prompts are billed on the whole request at $20 input and $75 output for Astra, and $4 and $15 for GPT-6.1 Sol. Claude Haiku 5.5’s price is for prompts up to 100,000 tokens; above that it’s $0.50 and $2.50. Argon isn’t on Google’s free API tier, and its output price includes thinking tokens. All three companies sell batch processing at half price.

At each price point, the three makers line up closely:

  • $2 input, $10 output: GPT-6.1 Sol, Claude Sonnet 5.5, and Gemini 4 Argon until November 30
  • $4 and $20: Claude Opus 5.5, and Gemini 4 Argon from December 1
  • $10 and $50: GPT-6 Astra and Claude Fable 5.1
  • $0.10 and $0.50: GPT-6 Luna and Claude Haiku 5.5

Worked example: one month of API use

Take an app that sends 20 million input tokens and gets 4 million output tokens back in a month. This is an illustration, not a measured workload, and it ignores caching and long-prompt rates.

  • GPT-6.1 Sol or Claude Sonnet 5.5: 20 × $2 + 4 × $10 = $40 + $40 = $80
  • Gemini 4 Argon: $80 in November. From December 1: 20 × $4 + 4 × $20 = $80 + $80 = $160
  • Claude Opus 5.5: 20 × $4 + 4 × $20 = $160
  • GPT-6 Astra or Claude Fable 5.1: 20 × $10 + 4 × $50 = $200 + $200 = $400
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash, through December 31: 20 × $0.75 + 4 × $3.75 = $15 + $15 = $30
  • GPT-6 Luna or Claude Haiku 5.5: 20 × $0.10 + 4 × $0.50 = $2 + $2 = $4

On Claude Max 5x, the $100 of monthly API credits would cover the $80 Sonnet 5.5 month. Run your own numbers in the AI token cost calculator.

What to watch for

  • Gemini 4 Argon’s API price doubles on December 1, 2026, from $2 and $10 to $4 and $20 per million tokens. Gemini 3.8 Flash doubles on January 1, 2027.
  • ChatGPT Pro 200’s allowance is changing. OpenAI says new Pro 200 subscriptions get a lower usage allowance than before at the same $200. Subscribers who qualify for grandfathering keep the old allowance through October 29, 2026, then move to the lower one. Ultrafast mode is only on Pro 500.
  • Fable isn’t in Claude Pro’s allowance. Claude’s pricing table marks Fable as “Usage credits” on Pro, which bill at API rates. On Max, it lists Fable at “50% of weekly limits.”
  • Claude Max’s API credits have rules. Anthropic says they expire at the end of each billing cycle, don’t roll over, and don’t cover interactive Claude Code or extra usage in the Claude apps. When they run out, API requests stop unless the organization has bought credits or turned on auto-reload.
  • Billing and cancellation. ChatGPT Go, Plus and Pro are monthly only. Claude Pro’s annual price is paid up front. Google lets you cancel anytime but gives no refunds for partial billing periods, except where the law requires, and its AI plans are for ages 18 and up.
  • Training on your chats. The ChatGPT and Claude plan tables say chats on personal plans may be used to train models, with an opt-out. Check your data settings.
  • Everything can change. Anthropic says prices and plans are “subject to change,” and Google says its limits may change without notice.

Which plan fits which kind of use?

  • Everyday questions at no cost: ChatGPT Free has unlimited everyday text chats but a 27K context window and 3 uploads a day. Gemini’s free plan includes Deep Research and image generation. Claude Free offers Sonnet and Haiku and up to 20 files per chat.
  • Long documents and big files: Google AI Pro and Claude Pro both list 1M-token context windows. ChatGPT Plus lists 256K in reasoning mode, about 320 pages of input, and ChatGPT Pro 400K.
  • Images and video: Google AI Plus, at $4.99, is the cheapest plan here that lists video generation, and AI Pro adds 1,000 Google Flow credits. ChatGPT includes image generation on every plan. Claude doesn’t generate images.
  • You live in Gmail and Google Docs: Google AI Pro puts Gemini in Gmail, Docs and Vids and bundles 5 TB of storage for $19.99.
  • Coding: each $20 plan includes a coding agent: Codex, Jules and Antigravity, or Claude Code. For coding costs in more depth, see Claude Code vs Cursor.
  • Heavy daily use: ChatGPT Pro ($100), Claude Max 5x ($100) or Google AI Ultra ($99.99). Pick by the model you need in chat: GPT-6 Pro, the highest Argon access, or Fable.
  • Building an app: use the API, not a subscription. GPT-6.1 Sol, Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Argon all cost $2 input and $10 output per million tokens until November 30; Argon doubles on December 1. If you already pay for Claude Max, its monthly API credits cover part of the bill.
  • Tightest budget: Google AI Plus at $4.99 or ChatGPT Go at $8.
  • Small teams: ChatGPT Business and Claude Team Standard both cost $20 per user a month billed annually ($25 monthly). Gemini Enterprise Business starts at $21 per seat.

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