The Race · video notes
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini: free vs paid price table
Free, or six hundred bucks a month? Here's every consumer plan of the three side by side. There's no winner on this page: pick the plan that removes a wall you actually hit.
The price table
US list prices as of 2026-10-08. Monthly, in US dollars, before tax. Prices vary by country and tax, and plans change often: check the vendor's page before you pay.
| ChatGPT (OpenAI) | Price | What the vendor lists |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Unlimited everyday text chats (abuse safeguards apply); separate limits on uploads, images, voice and data analysis. Ads may appear. |
| Go | $8/mo | Ads may appear. |
| Plus | $20/mo | No ads. |
| Pro | $100, $200 or $500/mo | No ads. Three monthly tiers. |
| Claude (Anthropic) | Price | What the vendor lists |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Sonnet and Haiku models; web search, create files, run code; memory; artifacts; up to 5 projects. No Research, no Claude Code. |
| Pro | $20/mo billed monthly, or $17/mo billed annually ($200 up front) | Adds Opus, Research and Claude Code; at least 5x the Free usage per 5-hour session. |
| Max 5x | $100/mo | 5x the Pro per-session usage. |
| Max 20x | $200/mo | 20x the Pro per-session usage. |
| Gemini (Google) | Price | What the vendor lists |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 3.6 Flash, varying access to 3.1 Pro, image generation and editing, Deep Research, Gemini Live, Canvas, Gems, 15 GB storage. |
| Google AI Plus | $4.99/mo | 2x Free usage limits, video generation, 400 GB. |
| Google AI Pro | $19.99/mo | 4x Free usage limits, Gemini in Gmail, Docs, Vids and more, 5 TB. |
| Google AI Ultra | $99.99 or $199.99/mo | 5x or 20x the AI Pro usage limits; storage from 20 TB. |
About the multipliers. Each “5x” or “20x” is relative to that vendor's own baseline. You can't compare them across vendors.
Our math: the two receipts
Our math. Simple sums of the US list prices above.
| Stack | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Receipt one: the three free plans | $0 | $0 |
| Receipt two: ChatGPT Pro $200 + Claude Max 20x $200 + Google AI Ultra $199.99 | $599.99 | $7,199.88 |
| One ~$20 plan (ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro or Google AI Pro) | $19.99 to $20 | About $240 ($200 for Claude Pro billed annually) |
None of the ~$200 plans is necessarily a vendor's top plan: ChatGPT Pro also comes at $500. The ~$200 tiers are sold mostly as more usage.
Our take
Most freelancers can start free. Pay for one plan, about $20, only to remove a wall you hit every week: no ads (ChatGPT Plus), Opus and Claude Code (Claude Pro), or Gemini in Gmail and Docs (Google AI Pro). That's our opinion, not a quality ranking: we didn't test answer quality.
Prices differ by country. For example, the Gemini prices Google showed us in Bangladesh were ৳600 (Plus), ৳2,500 (Pro) and ৳8,100 or ৳25,000 (Ultra) a month.
Sources
Every fact on this page comes from these pages, opened on 8 October 2026. Things change: check the live page before you rely on it.
- OpenAI, ChatGPT pricing Free, Go, Plus, Pro prices.
- OpenAI Help, ChatGPT Pro tiers
- OpenAI Help, ads in ChatGPT
- OpenAI Help, ChatGPT Free tier FAQ
- Claude pricing
- Claude Help, what is the Max plan
- Google, Gemini subscriptions (US)
- Google, Gemini subscriptions (local prices)
Our take and our math, not financial advice. Hourwiz uses Claude in its own work; no vendor paid for or reviewed this page.
No sponsor and no affiliate links on this page. Vendors are named so you can check them yourself, not as recommendations.
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