ChatGPT vs Claude
Both are ai tools. Here is what separates them.
What ChatGPT is
ChatGPT is OpenAI's assistant, reached through a web app, a desktop app and mobile apps. The free tier is listed at $0 per month, and everything above it is sold either as a subscription or, for developers, as an API key that bills per token at published API rates instead. Three models are listed: GPT-5.6 Sol, GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-5.6 Luna. Each carries a context window of about 1.05 million tokens and a maximum output of 128K tokens, so what separates them is the cost of running them rather than how much they can read at a time. The Plus allowances make that concrete. Counted per five hour window, Sol runs to roughly 10 to 100 messages, Terra to 20 to 170, and Luna to 215 to 1,720. Choosing a model is partly a decision about how many turns a working session needs. ChatGPT Go is listed at $8 per month and Plus at $20 per month, with Pro starting from $100. ChatGPT Business is $25 per user per month billed monthly, or $20 per user per month on annual billing, and a Business Premium seat carries five times the usage allowance of a Business Standard seat. Enterprise and Edu are quoted through sales, drop fixed rate limits altogether and scale usage with credits instead. Codex is reachable from the web, a command line interface, an IDE extension and iOS. ChatGPT is also a host for third-party apps. An app is built on a Model Context Protocol server combined with skills and optional UI, and selected MCP tools can return UI resources back into the conversation. Anything bound for the public directory passes through a public review process first, and the developer guidelines are specific about what gets in. An app must supply a privacy policy before it can be installed. Its name cannot be a single dictionary word unless there is a genuine brand connection behind it. It may not collect payment card data, health information, government IDs or authentication credentials through its input schema. It must suit a general audience that includes users aged 13 to 17, and may not target children under 13. Apps that transact are limited to physical goods, with digital products, subscriptions, tokens and credits all prohibited. On the compliance side, OpenAI holds SOC 2 Type 2 along with ISO 27001:2022, ISO 27017:2015, ISO 27018:2019, ISO 27701:2019 and ISO/IEC 42001:2023 attestations, and runs a responsible disclosure programme through Bugcrowd.
What Claude is
Claude is an AI assistant made by Anthropic. It is used through a conversation, and it handles writing, editing, analysis and code in the same place, with a desktop app alongside the browser version. Claude does more than answer. It can search the web, create files and execute code, so a request can end with a finished artefact rather than instructions for making one. It generates code and visualises data, which means a set of numbers can go in and a chart or a working script can come out of the same exchange. Content creation sits alongside the analysis: drafting, editing and rewriting are handled in the same thread as the research that informs them. Memory carries across conversations, so context set up in one session does not have to be rebuilt in the next. Claude also provides access to Research, and it integrates with Slack and Google Workspace services so that it can be reached from tools people already have open. Claude is free for everyone at its base tier. Pro costs $17 per month with the annual subscription discount and opens up more Claude models, so the choice of model is not fixed to a single default. Max starts at $100 per month, raises output limits across all tasks and includes early access to advanced features before they reach other plans. Anthropic notes that pricing and plans are subject to change at its discretion, so these figures describe the plans as published rather than a fixed commitment. The difference between the tiers is mostly capacity and choice. The free tier gives access to the assistant itself, Pro widens the range of models available, and Max is aimed at people who reach output limits regularly and want newer capabilities as they arrive. Because file creation, code execution and web search are part of the assistant rather than separate add-ons, the same subscription covers drafting a document, checking a source and running the code that produces a figure for it.
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