ChatGPT alternatives: 7 options compared by price and use case

If ChatGPT is not working for you, because of its limits, its price, how it handles your data or simply because you want a second opinion, there are several assistants worth trying. This page compares seven of them by what their makers publish: free plan, price of the main paid plan, notable features and where your data goes. Prices are in US dollars and were checked on each vendor's page on October 1, 2026.

How we chose and what we did not do. We included general-purpose assistants with a free plan or a free app from the companies behind widely used models, plus one option that runs entirely on your own computer. We have not run a hands-on quality test of these assistants, so the list is ordered by use case, not by a score.

At a glance

Claude: for long documents and coding

Anthropic's free plan includes web search, file creation, code execution and memory. Pro costs $20 a month in the US and adds Claude Code (Anthropic's coding agent), more usage and more models; Max costs $100 or $200 a month for five or twenty times Pro's usage. Claude lists a context window of up to 1M tokens, depending on the model, on every plan, which matters if you work with long reports or codebases. Its pricing page does not list image generation. For a detailed side-by-side, see Claude vs ChatGPT.

Gemini: if you live in Google's apps

Google's free plan includes Gemini 3.6 Flash, "varying access" to Gemini 3.1 Pro, image generation and editing, Deep Research, Gemini Live, Canvas and 15 GB of storage. Paid plans bundle more usage with more Google storage:

Because every paid plan includes Google storage, it can stand in for a storage-only subscription.

Microsoft Copilot: if you work in Word and Excel

Copilot has a free app. Its deeper features come with Microsoft 365 plans for individuals: Personal at $9.99 a month, Family at $12.99 (for up to six people, but the AI features are for the subscription owner only), Premium at $19.99, which Microsoft labels "best for AI & productivity", and Pro at $99.99 with the highest usage limits. Business plans are priced separately.

Perplexity: for research with sources

Perplexity presents itself as a research tool ("reliable research, premium data, and the top AI models"), and its paid plans let you choose between models from several companies; on October 1, 2026 its page listed models from OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Moonshot AI and Z.ai. Pro costs $17 a month and Max $167 a month, both when billed annually. The page notes that individual plans are "for personal use only".

Mistral: API credits included

Mistral's free plan includes limited messages and web searches, image generation and $10 a month in API credits. Pro costs $14.99 a month before tax and adds more messages, all-day coding sessions and $30 a month in API credits. A Team plan costs $24.99 per user per month.

DeepSeek: free access to DeepSeek's models

DeepSeek offers a web chat and apps for its own models (the latest listed on its site on October 1, 2026 was DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash) and does not list a paid consumer plan. Before you use it for anything sensitive, note what its privacy policy says: "we directly collect, process and store your Personal Data in People's Republic of China".

A local model: when privacy comes first

If you do not want your prompts to leave your computer, you can run an open model yourself with Ollama, which is free and open source. You need enough memory: an 8-billion-parameter model fits in about 8 GB of VRAM with a short context. See how to run an LLM locally and check your hardware with our VRAM calculator.

Which one should you try?

• Long documents or code: Claude.
• Gmail, Docs and Drive: Gemini.
• Word, Excel and Outlook: Microsoft Copilot through Microsoft 365.
• Research where you need the sources: Perplexity.
• The lowest monthly price for a paid plan: Google AI Plus at $4.99; among the full plans priced at roughly $15 to $20 a month, Mistral Pro is the cheapest at $14.99 before tax.
• Nothing leaves your computer: a local model with Ollama.

All of them have a free tier or app, so the fastest test is to give two of them the same real task from your week.

What we checked

Every price and feature above comes from the vendor's own pricing or help page, viewed with US prices on October 1, 2026, except Claude's, which come from Anthropic's help center. We did not test answer quality, speed or reliability.