AI Pricing Guide 2026: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok

Last Updated: November 1, 2026

Summary: Most AI assistants cost about $20 a month for their standard paid plan in November 2026: ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro are $20, Google AI Pro is $19.99 and Perplexity Pro is $17 a month billed annually. Grok is now sold through The X Subscription at $8 to $200 a month, and API prices for the flagship models in this guide run from $0.10 to $10 per million input tokens. Every price below links to the page it came from, checked on November 1, 2026.

AI pricing in 2026 comes down to three numbers: a free plan, a standard plan near $20 a month, and a heavy-use plan between $100 and $500. ChatGPT now sells Pro at three prices, Claude splits its top tier into Max and Ultra, and Grok moved to a new bundle on October 12, 2026. This guide puts every current plan side by side, then covers API token prices, team seats, free tiers and annual discounts, so you can compare the tier you would actually pay for.

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Most AI tools cost between $8 and $30 a month for a single paid seat in November 2026, and the standard tier at ChatGPT, Claude and Google sits at about $20. The table below lists the consumer plans for ten popular AI tools, with a link to the page each price came from.

Annual billing lowers several of these prices. Claude Pro drops to $17 a month, Runway Standard to $12 and Midjourney Basic to $8 when paid yearly, according to each company's pricing page.

AI API prices run from $0.10 to $10 per million input tokens and from $0.50 to $50 per million output tokens for the flagship models below. Output tokens cost 3 to 5 times more than input tokens on every model in the table, so long answers drive most of an API bill.

For model-by-model detail, our OpenAI API pricing guide covers GPT-6 Astra, Sol, Terra and Luna along with Batch and caching discounts, and our Gemini API pricing breakdown tracks the Argon and Flash price increases and Google's free tier. Anthropic's rates are covered in our Claude API pricing guide, and DeepSeek's peak and off-peak rates in our DeepSeek pricing guide.

Batch processing cuts API bills further. Anthropic and Google charge 50% less for batch requests, while Grok 4.7's batch discount is 20%, according to each company's pricing documentation.

Here is what those rates mean for a real workload. An app that sends 10 million input tokens and receives 2 million output tokens a month would pay about $40 on GPT-6.1 Sol, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Gemini 4 Argon today, $32 on Grok 4.7 and $21.12 on DeepSeek V4 Pro at peak rates. The same job costs $2 on GPT-6 Luna, or on Claude Haiku 5.5 if each prompt stays under 100K tokens. From December 1, 2026, the Gemini 4 Argon bill for that workload doubles to $80.

ChatGPT costs $0 for Free, $8 a month for Go, $20 for Plus, and $100, $200 or $500 for Pro in November 2026. OpenAI's help center confirms the $20 Plus price and the $100 and $200 Pro tiers, and the $500 Pro tier launched at OpenAI's DevDay on September 29, 2026, according to Let's Data Science.

ChatGPT Business costs $20 per user a month billed annually, or $25 billed monthly, for two or more users, after OpenAI cut seat prices by $5 in April 2026, as Lenz documents from OpenAI's help center. ChatGPT Enterprise is custom-priced through OpenAI's sales team.

ChatGPT's paid plans (Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise) run GPT-6 Sol in the main chat, with the rollout starting October 7, 2026, according to VPS Ranking's rollout report. ChatGPT Go may include ads, per OpenAI's pricing page, while Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise stay ad-free, as MacRumors reported when Go launched worldwide in January 2026.

ChatGPT Pro's three price points share one name, so check the exact amount on the checkout screen before you subscribe. OpenAI's Pro tiers help page says the tiers share the same core features and differ mainly in usage allowance. For every ChatGPT plan in detail, see our full ChatGPT pricing guide.

Claude costs the same as ChatGPT at the standard tier: Claude Pro is $20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually ($200 a year), according to Anthropic's pricing page. Claude Max costs $100 a month and Claude Ultra costs $200 a month, both billed monthly only. Claude Team costs $25 per standard seat monthly or $20 billed annually, for teams of 2 to 150, and Claude Enterprise costs $20 per seat a month plus usage at API rates, with a 20-seat minimum.

Claude's pricing differs from ChatGPT's in two ways. Claude has no ad-supported budget plan like ChatGPT Go, so Pro is the only paid step between Free and the $100 Max plan. Claude Max and Ultra also include monthly Claude API credits of $100 and $200, which work on the Claude API but not on Claude Code, according to Anthropic's API credits page. Developers who build on Claude pay per token, and our Claude API pricing guide breaks down the rates by model.

Google's Gemini plans undercut ChatGPT at the low end and match it in the middle. Google AI Plus costs $4.99 a month, Google AI Pro costs $19.99, and Google AI Ultra costs $99.99 or $199.99, according to Google's Gemini subscriptions page. The $99.99 Ultra tier offers 5 times AI Pro's usage limits, and the $199.99 tier offers 20 times.

Google AI Pro includes Gemini 4 Argon, Google's newest Pro model, and Google's subscriptions page lists Argon on AI Plus as well. At $4.99, Google AI Plus is the cheapest paid plan in this guide's comparison table. The real reason to pick Gemini over a same-priced rival is usually Gmail, Docs and Workspace integration, since Google AI Pro and ChatGPT Plus sit one cent apart.

Perplexity Pro costs $17 a month and Perplexity Max costs $167 a month, both billed annually, according to Perplexity's pricing page. Paid month to month, Perplexity Max costs $200, or $2,000 a year on annual billing, per Perplexity's Max help article. Our Perplexity pricing guide covers every Perplexity plan in detail.

Grok is now sold through The X Subscription, which replaced SuperGrok for new customers on October 12, 2026. The X Subscription costs $0 for Free, $8 a month for Plus ($80 a year), $30 for Premium ($300 a year), $100 for Super ($1,000 a year) and $200 for Ultra ($2,000 a year), according to SpaceXAI's X Subscription pricing page. The same subscription also covers Cursor, per Cursor's pricing page.

Existing SuperGrok subscribers can keep their legacy plan unless they change or cancel it, and anyone who switches to The X Subscription gets a prorated refund for unused time, according to the same X Subscription pricing page. Our Grok pricing guide walks through every tier.

Microsoft, Cursor and the creative AI tools each run their own price ladders. Microsoft 365 Personal, which includes Copilot, costs $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year, and Microsoft 365 Premium costs $19.99 a month, according to Microsoft's Copilot pricing page.

Cursor now sells new subscriptions through The X Subscription at the same $8, $30, $100 and $200 monthly tiers as Grok, with team plans from $30 per user, according to Cursor's pricing page. Our Cursor pricing guide explains what each tier includes.

Midjourney costs $10, $30, $60 or $120 a month for Basic, Standard, Pro and Mega, or 20% less billed annually, according to Midjourney's plans page. Runway costs $15, $35 or $95 a month for Standard, Pro and Max ($12, $28 or $76 billed annually), and ElevenLabs runs from $6 a month for Starter to $990 for Business, per each company's pricing page. Our Midjourney pricing guide compares its plans in depth.

Business AI plans cost $20 to $30 per seat a month at the standard level, with premium seats running $100 or more. ChatGPT Business costs $20 per user billed annually or $25 monthly, with a two-user minimum. Claude Team costs $20 or $25 per standard seat and $100 or $125 per premium seat, and The X Subscription sells team seats for Grok and Cursor at $30, $100 or $200. Perplexity Enterprise Pro costs $40 per seat a month, per Perplexity's enterprise billing FAQ, and the Microsoft 365 Copilot Business add-on costs $18 per user a month on an annual promotion through December 31, 2026 (list price $21), per Microsoft's business pricing page. Our Copilot pricing guide covers Microsoft's business and personal plans.

Enterprise AI pricing is mostly a custom quote. ChatGPT Enterprise has no published price, while Claude Enterprise is the exception: Anthropic lists $20 per seat a month plus usage billed at API rates, with a 20-seat minimum, on its pricing page. Treat any enterprise figure as the start of a sales conversation, since volume, contract length and usage all change the final number.

Most AI subscriptions do not include API access, but that changed for some top plans in October 2026. Claude Max, Ultra and Team now include monthly Claude API credits ($100 for Max, $200 for Ultra, and $20 or $100 per Team seat, pooled up to $500), while Claude Free, Pro and Enterprise get none, according to Anthropic's API credits page. OpenAI began giving ChatGPT Pro and Business subscribers monthly API credits of up to $500 on October 28, 2026, and ChatGPT Plus is not eligible, according to DataNorth's report.

API usage is still billed per token, separately from any chat subscription, and the included API credits on Claude and ChatGPT plans expire at the end of each billing cycle. A ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro or Perplexity Pro subscription comes with no API credits at all, so developers on those plans should budget for API costs as a separate line item. The per-token table near the top of this guide lists current rates for OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Grok and DeepSeek.

Every major AI assistant in this guide has a free plan, but the limits differ. ChatGPT Free costs nothing, and OpenAI said it would test ads for Free and Go users in the US when Go launched worldwide in January 2026, according to MacRumors. Google says AI Plus doubles the Gemini free tier's usage limits and AI Pro quadruples them, per its subscriptions page.

The X Subscription's Free tier gives limited Grok and Cursor usage, with Plus as the first paid step at $8 a month, according to SpaceXAI's pricing page. Perplexity's free plan keeps its core feature, cited search answers, without a subscription. Among creative tools, ElevenLabs Free includes 10,000 credits a month and Runway Free gives 125 one-time credits, per each company's pricing page.

AI prices changed several times in late 2026, so check the vendor page before you buy. OpenAI added a $500 ChatGPT Pro tier on September 29, Grok moved to The X Subscription on October 12, and OpenAI began bundling API credits with Pro and Business on October 28. Google has also scheduled API increases: Gemini 4 Argon rises from $2 input and $10 output to $4 and $20 per million tokens on December 1, 2026, and Gemini 3.8 Flash doubles to $1.50 and $7.50 on January 1, 2027, per Google's Gemini API pricing page. To track these moves in one place, our monthly AI Pricing Index logs chatbot plans, API rates and business seat prices.

The safest approach: bookmark each platform's official pricing page. Don't rely on any third-party guide, including a comparison piece like this one, as your only source before subscribing.

Promotional and introductory AI prices deserve extra care. Microsoft's $18 Copilot Business price is a first-year promotion that runs through December 31, 2026, and Gemini 4 Argon's $2 input rate is introductory. Confirm the current rate on the company's own site before you assume a promotional price still applies.

Annual billing saves about 17% to 20% on most of these plans. Claude Pro costs $200 a year instead of $240 paid monthly, The X Subscription's Premium tier costs $300 a year instead of $360, and Perplexity Max costs $2,000 a year instead of $2,400. ChatGPT Business drops from $25 to $20 per user on annual billing, a 20% discount for teams that commit upfront.

Not every AI plan offers an annual price. Claude Max and Ultra are billed monthly only, and so is Microsoft 365 Pro at $99.99 a month, according to each company's pricing page. Midjourney and Runway both discount annual plans by about 20%, which makes Midjourney Basic $8 a month and Runway Standard $12 a month when paid yearly.

The best-value AI subscription depends on how much you use it. For the cheapest paid entry, Google AI Plus at $4.99 a month beats ChatGPT Go and X Subscription Plus at $8. For the standard professional tier, ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro at $20, Google AI Pro at $19.99 and Perplexity Pro at $17 a month billed annually are close enough that product fit matters more than price. The X Subscription's Premium tier costs $30 a month but bundles Grok and Cursor in one plan.

Heavy-use AI plans get expensive fast. ChatGPT Pro runs $100 to $500 a month, Claude Max and Ultra cost $100 and $200, Google AI Ultra costs $99.99 or $199.99, and Perplexity Max costs $200 month to month. Put plainly, a 10-person team that standardizes on one $20 assistant spends $2,400 a year before a single API call.

No single AI company is cheapest at every tier. Google wins at the bottom with AI Plus, Perplexity Pro is the cheapest standard plan on annual billing, and GPT-6 Luna and Claude Haiku 5.5 are the cheapest models in this guide's API table. Start with the tier you would actually use, then compare that row across vendors.

In November 2026, the standard paid tier of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity costs $17 to $20 a month, while Grok now sits inside The X Subscription at $8 to $200. ChatGPT Pro has three prices ($100, $200 and $500), and Google's Gemini API rates for Argon and 3.8 Flash double on December 1 and January 1. API usage is billed per token on every platform, with included credits only on top plans from OpenAI and Anthropic. Check each vendor's pricing page before you subscribe.

How much does ChatGPT cost in 2026?
ChatGPT Free costs $0, Go costs $8 a month, Plus costs $20, and Pro costs $100, $200 or $500 a month. ChatGPT Business costs $20 per user a month billed annually or $25 monthly for two or more users, and Enterprise is custom-priced.

Is ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity cheaper?
At the standard tier they are nearly identical: ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro cost $20 a month, Google AI Pro costs $19.99, and Perplexity Pro costs $17 a month billed annually. Google is cheapest at the entry level, with Google AI Plus at $4.99 a month.

How much does Grok cost in 2026?
Since October 12, 2026, new customers buy Grok through The X Subscription: Free, Plus at $8 a month ($80 a year), Premium at $30 ($300 a year), Super at $100 and Ultra at $200. Existing SuperGrok subscribers can keep their legacy plan, and anyone who switches gets a prorated refund for unused time.

Do AI subscriptions include API access?
Mostly no. ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro and Perplexity Pro include no API credits, but Claude Max, Ultra and Team, and ChatGPT Pro and Business, now include monthly API credits that expire at the end of each billing cycle.

What does AI business or enterprise pricing typically cost?
Most standard business seats cost $20 to $30 a month: ChatGPT Business is $20 to $25 per user, Claude Team is $20 to $25 per standard seat, and X Subscription team seats start at $30. Enterprise plans are usually custom quotes, except Claude Enterprise, which lists $20 per seat a month plus API usage with a 20-seat minimum.

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By AI Business Weekly Editorial

Written by the AI Business Weekly team with AI assistance, then reviewed, fact-checked against cited sources and edited by Sameer Khan.

About the editor: Sameer Khan is the founder of AI Business Weekly. He has nearly a decade of B2B sales experience across SaaS, research and advisory, and AI, working with HR leaders and executives on research and AI adoption. He holds an MBA from the Ted Rogers School of Management.