ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are the three AI assistants most people in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada now reach for first. They can all write, explain, summarise, code and search the web. The differences that matter are quieter: price, how much you can use before hitting a limit, which one is strongest at writing or coding or research, and how well each fits into the apps you already use. This guide compares them on the prices and plans listed on 10 November 2026, so you can pick one instead of paying for all three.
A note on model names before we start. Vendors rename models often, and independent guides checked in late October and early November 2026 disagree on the exact names in use — some list GPT-6 Luna and GPT-6 Sol for ChatGPT, others list GPT-5.6 Luna; some list Gemini 4 Argon as Google’s flagship, others still list Gemini 3.x models on plan cards. This article therefore describes models as listed on 10 November 2026 and focuses on what each plan costs and what it lets you do, which is the part that decides value for most people. Check the model picker inside your own account before paying, because it changes faster than any article can.
Who each assistant is for
ChatGPT is the generalist. It is the easiest to recommend if you want one assistant for everyday questions, drafting, images, voice chat, coding help and research, and if you want the cheapest paid step-up. Its free tier covers unlimited text chats, with limits on uploads, image creation, voice and deep research, and its paid ladder starts at $8 a month.
Claude is the specialist for long, careful work. It is widely regarded as the strongest of the three for long documents, nuanced writing feedback and coding, especially through Claude Code, which is included with paid plans. If your typical job is a 40-page PDF, a long essay draft or a coding session, Claude is usually the better pick.
Gemini is the Google user’s assistant. If your work lives in Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive and Google Chrome, Gemini is built into those apps on paid plans, and its student offer is the best free deal of the three for eligible US college students. Its flagship model, Gemini 4 Argon, launched on 13 October 2026 for AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers, according to guides that read Google’s own plan pages that month.
The free plans: what $0 actually buys
All three have a genuinely usable free tier, and for occasional use none of them needs a subscription.
ChatGPT Free costs $0 and includes unlimited text chats, with capped uploads, image creation, voice, deep research and coding help. Ads may appear for Free users in regions where OpenAI is testing them; Plus and Pro users do not see ads.
Claude Free also costs $0 and includes web search, file uploads, memory and up to five Projects for organising chats, according to Anthropic’s pricing page as read in September and October 2026. It does not include Claude Code, the coding tool, which starts on the Pro plan.
Gemini Free costs $0 and includes the Flash-Lite model, deep research and 15 GB of storage. It is the lightest of the three free tiers on model power, but it is enough for quick questions and for trying Gemini inside Google apps.
If you only ask a few questions a day, start free and pay only when a limit actually interrupts your work.
The $20 tier: Plus vs Pro vs AI Pro
This is where most people land, and the three $20 plans are not the same product.
ChatGPT Plus costs $20 a month, billed monthly only, with no annual discount. It adds more generous limits than Free, no ads, reasoning models, Codex coding help on web, command line and in code editors, scheduled tasks, custom GPTs and Projects. There is no annual billing option for personal ChatGPT plans, so a year of Plus costs $240.
Claude Pro costs $20 a month, or $17 a month when billed annually — $200 paid up front for the year. That annual option is the one clear price advantage Claude has over ChatGPT at this tier: the same $20 monthly service costs $40 less over a year if you pay annually. Pro adds about five times the free tier’s usage, Claude Code, unlimited Projects, research features and more model choice.
Google AI Pro costs $19.99 a month and is the plan formerly sold as Gemini Advanced. It offers four times the free tier’s usage limits, the Gemini 4 Argon and Pro models, 5 TB of storage, Gemini in Gmail, Docs and Vids, and 1,000 Flow credits a month for video generation. For a Google Workspace user, the storage alone can justify the price: 5 TB bundled with the assistant is far more than the 15 GB on the free tier.
So at $20: pick ChatGPT Plus for the broadest everyday assistant and the strongest image and voice features; pick Claude Pro for long writing and coding; pick Google AI Pro if you live in Google Docs and Gmail — or if you are an eligible US college student, claim the free year first (see the student section in Best AI Tools for Students in 2026).
The budget step-up: ChatGPT Go and Google AI Plus
Two plans undercut the $20 tier, and neither has a Claude equivalent.
ChatGPT Go costs $8 a month in the US, billed monthly only. It includes everything in Free, with higher limits for uploads, image creation and data analysis, and a longer memory. Ads may still appear on Go. It is the cheapest paid AI assistant of the three, and the right choice if Free feels cramped but $20 feels like too much.
Google AI Plus costs $4.99 a month in the US — cheaper still. It doubles the free tier’s usage limits, adds video generation, a Daily Brief, 200 Flow credits a month and 400 GB of storage. One caution, reported in October 2026: Google told Plus subscribers that the Pro model would be removed from AI Plus on 13 November 2026, so Plus is increasingly a Flash-model plan. If you buy Plus for the Pro model, check the current plan card first.
Claude has no budget tier between Free and Pro. If $20 is too much for Claude, the free tier is your only Claude option — which is usable, but capped.
The power-user tiers: $100 and $200
Heavy users face a $100 and a $200 choice on both ChatGPT and Claude, and a $99.99 and $199.99 choice on Gemini.
ChatGPT Pro comes in three tiers: $100, $200 and $500 a month, all billed monthly only. OpenAI no longer states Pro usage as a multiple of Plus. The $500 tier is the only one that includes Ultrafast access. Each Pro tier also includes monthly API credit equal to its price — $100, $200 or $500 — according to OpenAI’s help pages as read in October 2026.
Claude Max costs $100 a month and gives five times Pro’s usage every five hours and every week, plus $100 a month in API credits. Claude Ultra costs $200 a month, gives ten times Pro’s weekly usage, removes the five-hour limit for verified accounts, and includes $200 a month in API credits. Ultra is the plan Anthropic used to sell as Max 20x; it was renamed on 30 October 2026 at the same $200 price, and existing Max 20x subscribers moved over automatically.
Google AI Ultra costs $99.99 a month for five times AI Pro’s limits, or $199.99 a month for twenty times AI Pro’s limits. Both include Deep Think, the highest access to Gemini 4 Argon, Project Genie, YouTube Premium, and 20 TB or more of storage, with 10,000 or 25,000 Flow credits a month respectively.
For most people, none of these tiers is worth it. They exist for people who hit the $20 plan’s limits every week — professional coders, researchers running deep research daily, and teams generating video at volume. If you have not yet hit a limit that stopped real work, do not buy headroom you have not needed.
The verdict, by use case
If you want one assistant for everything and the cheapest paid upgrade, choose ChatGPT — Go at $8 or Plus at $20. If you write long documents or code for a living, choose Claude Pro at $20 a month ($17 on annual billing). If your work lives in Google apps, choose Google AI Pro at $19.99 — and if you are an eligible US college student, claim the free year before 31 December 2026. If you only need a little more than free, Google AI Plus at $4.99 is the cheapest step up of all, with ChatGPT Go at $8 close behind.
For a deeper look at what the free tier includes, read Is ChatGPT Free? What the Free Tier Includes in 2026, and for the wider picture of what these tools can and cannot do, read AI in 2026: What GPT-6, Chatbots and Everyday AI Actually Do.
Update — 12 November 2026: Who Can Still Use Claude? Anthropic’s New Regional Rules Take Effect Today
Prices have not moved since this comparison was published on 10 November 2026 — ChatGPT Go is still $8 a month, Plus is still $20, Claude Pro is still $20 ($17 on annual billing), and Claude Max and Ultra are still $100 and $200. What has changed today, Thursday 12 November 2026, is who is allowed to use Claude at all. Anthropic’s updated Usage Policy and its clarified Supported Regions Policy take effect today, having been announced on 8 October.
The headline change is that eligibility is now decided by a company’s registration, headquarters and ownership — not just by where the individual user happens to be. From today, Claude is barred for people physically located in an unsupported region; for companies registered or headquartered in one, including all of their employees wherever those employees are located; and for companies more than 50% owned or controlled by entities from such regions. Russia, mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau are not on Anthropic’s supported-regions list. The rules cover Claude.ai, Claude Code, Cowork, the API, and Claude models reached through cloud platforms and authorised resellers.
Enforcement has already started. Anthropic may ask accounts that show risk signals — use from an unsupported region, or unauthorised resale of Claude access — to complete identity verification through Persona, a third-party service, by submitting a government-issued ID and a selfie. Accounts that fail to verify can be banned. Users began reporting these checks on 11 November, and some said their accounts were closed afterwards. As of 12 November, Anthropic had not disclosed how many accounts had been checked or closed.
Two cautions keep this in proportion. First, the supported-regions country list itself has not changed — the version dated 12 November is identical to the one dated 12 May 2026, according to reporting that compared the two. What is new is the clarified scope, covering employers and ownership, and the new Usage Policy version, which also adds a ban on sustained abuse of the models. Second, for most readers in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, nothing changes: if you live and work there, your access is unaffected. The change matters if you travel to China, Hong Kong, Macau or Russia, if you work for a company registered or headquartered there, or if you reach Claude through a reseller. A VPN does not help if your employer is the banned party. OpenAI has announced similar controls — platform approval and limits on multi-account paid subscriptions — but those do not start until 20 November, so ChatGPT access is unaffected today.
Sources: Anthropic, “2026 Usage Policy update” (announced 8 October 2026): https://www.anthropic.com/news/2026-usage-policy-update — Anthropic, Supported Regions Policy: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/supported-regions — MLLM, “Anthropic Expands Claude Regional Restrictions” (11 November 2026): https://www.mlllm.io/articles/3808-anthropic-expands-claude-regional-restrictions-company-jurisdiction-now-determines-access-not-user-location/ — TokenPost, “Claude Users Report ID Checks and Closures as Anthropic Policy Takes Effect” (12 November 2026): https://www.tokenpost.com/news/regulation/55545 — Meduza, “Russian media outlets are reporting a ‘new’ Claude AI ban. The rule has actually been in place since last year” (12 November 2026): https://ryaqqipanoylafvr.w12mhmsaporr.live/en/feature/2026/11/12/russian-media-outlets-are-reporting-a-new-claude-ai-ban-the-rule-has-actually-been-in-place-since-last-year
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheapest, ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini?
Google AI Plus at $4.99 a month is the cheapest paid plan, followed by ChatGPT Go at $8. All three have a $0 free tier. At the $20 tier, Claude Pro is cheapest over a year at $200 annually, against $240 for ChatGPT Plus.
Is ChatGPT Plus worth $20 a month?
It is worth it if you use ChatGPT daily and hit free-tier limits on reasoning, research, uploads or coding. If you ask a few questions a week, the free tier is enough and Plus buys little.
Is Claude better than ChatGPT for writing?
For long documents and careful editing, Claude is generally preferred by writers and editors who have tested both. For short drafts and everyday writing, the difference is smaller, and ChatGPT’s image and voice features may matter more.