ChatGPT Plus vs Claude Pro
ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro side by side: what each one is, what it costs to start, and whether you can try it free. Everything below comes from the vendors' own sites and other public sources, not from hands-on testing.
At a glance
| ChatGPT Plus | Claude Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Writing & Copy | Writing & Copy |
| Starting price | $20/mo (checked October 2026) | Free; paid plans from $17/mo (checked October 2026) |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Profile | Read profile | Read profile |
Prices are in US dollars unless shown otherwise. Confirm the current price on the vendor's site before you buy.
Key differences
Both list a free tier, so you can try each before paying.
Claude Pro has the lower starting price ($17/mo against $20/mo for ChatGPT Plus). The cheapest plan rarely has the same limits or features, so compare plans before choosing on price.
Both are in our Writing & Copy category.
About each tool
ChatGPT Plus
OpenAI's paid personal ChatGPT plan with expanded chat, deep research, image creation, voice, projects, custom GPTs and Codex. Plus is $20 a month, billed monthly; the Free and Go plans are separate.
Who it is for
Individuals who want more usage and tools than the Free or Go plans give them. OpenAI sells Business and Enterprise plans separately for organizations.
Strengths
- OpenAI lists projects, scheduled tasks and custom GPTs on Plus
- OpenAI lists expanded deep research, memory and context, and Codex usage over Free and Go
- Codex on the web, command line, IDE extension and iOS is included, and extra usage can be bought with ChatGPT credits
- OpenAI says Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts will not have ads
- You can turn off Improve the model for everyone in Settings under Data controls, and OpenAI says Temporary Chats are not used to improve models
Limitations
- Higher Codex, memory, image and deep research allowances are reserved for Pro, which OpenAI states as 5x Plus usage at $100 a month and 20x at $200 a month
- OpenAI says ads can appear on the Free and Go plans, which is a plan difference rather than a Plus limit
- The pages we read were inconsistent on agent mode, so we do not list it as a Plus feature
Claude Pro
Anthropic's paid personal Claude plan: more usage than Free, plus Research, unlimited Projects and Claude Code. $17 a month billed annually ($20 monthly).
Who it is for
Individuals who want more usage than the Free plan allows. Anthropic also positions it for longer multi-step tasks and for using Claude Code in the terminal under the same subscription.
Strengths
- Anthropic's pricing page lists Pro as everything in Free plus more usage, Research, unlimited Projects, Claude Code, more models, Claude in Chrome and Microsoft 365
- Pro is listed at $17 a month billed up front at $200 a year, or $20 a month if billed monthly
- Anthropic's help center says Pro offers at least five times the usage per session of the Free service, with priority access in high-traffic periods and early access to new features
- Documents added to a project are cached, and Anthropic says cached tokens count less toward usage limits than uncached ones
- Anthropic's Pro help article says subscribers can turn on usage credits to keep working beyond the included limits
Limitations
- Usage is limited by session and by week, not by a fixed message count. The session limit resets every five hours, and a weekly limit across all models resets at a fixed time assigned to the account
- Anthropic says message counts vary with message length, attached file length, conversation length and the model or feature used, and that it may add weekly or monthly caps or model and feature restrictions to manage capacity
- Usage limits are shared across Claude and Claude Code on Pro
- API usage is not included in Pro and needs separate Console billing
- Anthropic's privacy article says that if the training setting is on, chats from consumer plans (Free, Pro and Max) may be kept in de-identified form for up to 5 years
