The three price lists, laid side by side, tell a story of convergence: the tiers are now the same. A zero to get started, a budget tier under $10 (ChatGPT’s Go, Google’s AI Plus), the $20 plan that is the professionals’ default, and the high tier at $100-200 for all-day users, typically with 5x/20x usage multipliers. The prices in the table were checked on 19/07/2026 on the official pages: re-read them there before signing, because they move often.

If the tiers are equal, the choice shifts to two questions.

First question: what do you do with it?

The plans do not include the same things, and the real difference lies in the tools beyond the chat. ChatGPT plans include Codex, the coding agent, from Free upwards. Claude plans include Claude Code and the connected work tools. Google’s plans tie the subscription to the ecosystem (Gmail, Docs, generative photos and video, storage). The operational question: of the included tools, which would you actually use? A $20 plan of which you only use the chat competes with a free plan plus a handful of credits via a gateway.

Second question: when do you hit the limit?

All the plans reason in usage quotas over hourly windows, and the limit is what you feel before quality: the intense day when the assistant stops. The course’s criterion applies word for word: start from free, and move up a tier only when you hit a concrete limit, be it the quota, a model reserved for higher tiers, or an included tool you’re missing. Moving up costs one click; moving down too. The wrong subscription is the one sized on anxiety instead of usage.

The case where none of the three is needed

If your use is occasional but you want the best models, or you want to compare models from different labs, the subscription route is the least efficient: a pay-as-you-go key on a gateway costs what you use and gives you all the catalogues at once. It is the path described in the OpenRouter sheet, and for many non-technical profiles it is the price list’s best-kept secret: the playground doesn’t require a line of code.

This comparison looks at individual price lists; Business and Enterprise plans follow their own logic (seats, administration, data contracts) and deserve a separate piece when the site gets to teams.