Claude vs ChatGPT: plans, limits and prices compared

Claude vs ChatGPT is the comparison many people make before they pay for a chatbot. ChatGPT comes from OpenAI and Claude from Anthropic, and this page compares what each company actually publishes about its plans: prices, models, usage limits, context windows, coding tools and data use. Every figure links to the vendor's own page, checked on October 6, 2026.

What this page is not: a quality ranking. We have not run a controlled, hands-on test of both assistants, so we do not say which one writes or reasons better. How we checked: this comparison relies only on the two companies' own documentation, never on the tools' opinion of themselves, and we do not score quality.

Plans and prices (US dollars)

Prices can differ outside the US. OpenAI bills in local currency in a list of countries (euros across the European Economic Area). Anthropic says some regions include tax in the displayed price and others add it at checkout. From Spain, for example, ChatGPT Go is shown at €8 a month, ChatGPT Plus at €23 and Claude Pro at €18 before tax. OpenAI's pricing page, billing help and Europe terms do not say whether its euro price includes VAT, so the two figures are not directly comparable: check the amount on the checkout screen. Each plan is broken down in our ChatGPT pricing and Claude pricing guides.

Models in each plan

ChatGPT lists nine named models across its plans, plus "previous models". On October 6, 2026, the pricing page showed unlimited text chats with GPT-5.6 Luna on the free plan, GPT-6 reasoning models from Plus upward, and "Pro reasoning powered by GPT-6 Astra" on Pro.

Claude has fewer, larger families: Haiku and Sonnet on the free plan, Opus from Pro upward, and Fable on Max (where it can use up to half of the weekly limits) or with usage credits on Pro.

Model names change every few months. What matters more is which tier of model each plan unlocks, and that is what the table above captures.

Usage limits

The two companies describe limits differently:

• ChatGPT advertises "unlimited" everyday text chats on every plan, "subject to abuse guardrails", with limits on uploads, image creation, voice and deep research that grow with the plan.
• Claude has no fixed message count. Limits reset on a rolling five-hour window, paid plans add weekly limits, and chats, the desktop app and Claude Code all draw from the same pool. Pro gives "at least 5x more usage per 5-hour session than Free", and Max 5x or 20x more than Pro. On paid plans you can turn on usage credits, billed at API rates, to keep working after a limit.

In practice: if you mostly chat, ChatGPT's unlimited text chats are simpler to reason about. If you code with Claude Code or run long sessions, Claude's pooled limits are the number to watch.

Context window: how much text each can take in

Claude lists a context window of "up to 1M", varying by model, on every plan from Free to Max.

OpenAI notes that the space for your input is smaller than the total window, because instructions, memory and reasoning share it. Its page estimates about 40 pages of text for the fast model on Plus and about 320 pages for the reasoning models. If you regularly paste long documents, this row matters more than any other. For what a token is, see what is a token.

Coding

• ChatGPT includes Codex, OpenAI's coding agent: limited on Free and Go, "expanded" on Plus and longer sessions on Pro.
• Claude includes Claude Code, Anthropic's coding agent, on every paid plan, sharing the plan's usage limits. For heavier use, Anthropic points to pay-as-you-go API credits.

Images, voice and other features

Your data

Both let individual users opt out of having their conversations used to train models: OpenAI's pricing page shows "Opt-out available" for Free, Go, Plus and Pro, and Anthropic's shows "Opt-out" for Free, Pro and Max. On Anthropic's Team plan, the default is no training on your content.

Which one should you try first?

Without a quality test, the honest answer depends on what you need from the plan:

• You want images, voice and one subscription for everything: ChatGPT lists image generation, voice and unlimited text chats on every plan, with higher limits from Plus.
• You work with long documents: Claude lists a context window of up to 1M tokens (depending on the model) on every plan, against 27K to 400K on ChatGPT.
• You code daily: both include an agent (Codex, Claude Code). Claude's limits are shared between chat and code; ChatGPT's Codex limits grow with the plan.
• You are on a budget: both free plans are usable. ChatGPT also has Go, a cheaper paid tier that may show ads.

The cheapest way to decide is to use both free plans on your own work for a week. If neither fits, see ChatGPT alternatives by use case, or compare ChatGPT with Google's assistant in ChatGPT vs Gemini.