AI Tools
What do AI tools really cost? We compare the subscription prices of image generators, chatbots and creative tools – including notes on VAT, usage rights and hidden extra costs.
Create AI images
Midjourney, ChatGPT, Firefly, Ideogram & co. – image generators compared on price
Create AI videos
Runway, Google Veo, Synthesia & co. – video generators and avatar tools compared on price
LLM comparison
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Mistral & co. – subscription prices, data protection and context windows
Create AI music
Suno, Udio, ElevenLabs & co. – prices and usage rights compared
Quick comparison: AI subscriptions 2026
Cheapest paid entry tier per provider, as of 30 October 2026. USD amounts are net prices; euro amounts are gross prices for Germany.
Image generators
- Playground Free Free
- ChatGPT Go €8
- Krea Basic $9
- Adobe Firefly Standard $9.99
- Midjourney Basic $10
Chatbots & assistants
- Google Gemini (free) Free
- Google AI Plus €4.99
- ChatGPT Go (with ads) €8
- Grok Plus $8
- Microsoft 365 Single €10
Top money-saving tips
- Annual plan: 20% off at Midjourney, around 40% at Krea
- Try for free: Gemini, ChatGPT, Playground and Krea have permanent free tiers
- Factor in VAT: 19% is added on top of US prices
- Check the rights: Commercial use is not always allowed on free plans
Three steps to the right AI subscription
1. Max out the free tier
Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, Mistral and Krea can be used free of charge indefinitely. Paying only makes sense once you regularly hit the limits.
2. Check the bundles
Microsoft 365 Single (€99 a year) includes Office, 1 TB of storage and Copilot; Google AI Plus (€4.99) includes 400 GB of storage and Gemini. If you need that anyway, you save yourself a separate AI subscription.
3. Compare the final price
Euro prices are final prices, dollar prices are usually net: $20 becomes roughly $23.80 with VAT. Only then is the comparison fair.
Frequently asked questions about AI costs
The entry-level plans from the big providers mostly cost between 5 and 20 euros or US dollars a month in 2026. Among chatbots, Google AI Plus starts at €4.99, ChatGPT Go costs €8, Microsoft 365 Single €10 and ChatGPT Plus €23. Image generators start at $9 a month on a monthly plan at Krea ($5 if billed annually) and at $10 at Midjourney. There is hardly any upper limit: Midjourney Mega costs $120, and ChatGPT Pro €103 to €510 a month depending on the tier.
Yes. Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Playground, Krea, Ideogram and Clipdrop all have permanently free tiers. Pay attention to the usage rights, though: with Recraft, all images on the free plan are public and commercial use is excluded. Playground, by contrast, allows commercial use even on its free plan. Midjourney offers no free trial on its website or in Discord – only its sister app niji·journey can be tried for free, with limits.
Almost all US providers quote net prices in US dollars. When you buy from Germany, the payment processor adds 19% VAT (Umsatzsteuer) – so $10 becomes roughly $11.90. Depending on your credit card, a foreign-currency fee of 1 to 2% may come on top. Providers with genuine gross prices in euros, such as Google, Microsoft, OpenAI (ChatGPT) or Mistral, are more transparent: the amount shown is the final price.
On paper, often yes: Midjourney gives 20% off for annual prepayment, Krea around 40%, Microsoft around 17% on Microsoft 365 and Anthropic 15% on Claude Pro. For ChatGPT, Google and Mistral, however, there is no annual payment option at all for consumers. Because the AI market changes quickly – in 2026 Leonardo was discontinued and Freepik AI was renamed Magnific – a monthly plan is often the safer choice with new tools.
More than you might think. A typical pairing of ChatGPT Plus (€23 a month) and Midjourney Standard ($30 net, around $35.70 with VAT) costs €276 plus roughly $428 a year. With the Midjourney annual plan ($288 net), the image part drops by 20%. So check whether one subscription covers both: ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok already generate images within the chat subscription, and Google AI Plus costs only €59.88 a year.
Most consumer subscriptions run month to month and renew automatically. Mind the details: xAI requires cancellation at least 24 hours before renewal, Google does not refund partly used billing periods, and Midjourney only refunds you if you have used less than 20 GPU minutes in total. Annual plans at Midjourney or Claude are paid in full up front.
Putting AI tools in context: four fields, four pricing models
AI tools fall roughly into four fields: images, videos, music and language models that write text, answer questions and produce code. We compare them in separate sections, namely AI images, AI videos, AI music and the LLM comparison. Each field has its own strengths, and hardly any provider covers all of them.
The pricing logic is important. Many services sell credits that are used up per generated image, second of video or song. A monthly plan then contains a fixed allowance. Language models are often billed by usage tier: free access with limits, a standard plan and expensive tiers for heavy users. The monthly price alone says little; what matters is how many results you get for it.
Legal questions: copyright, usage rights and data protection
Under German copyright law, protection arises only for personal intellectual creations by a human being (section 2(2) UrhG). Results produced purely by machine are therefore generally not protected by copyright, and others may be able to use them. Whether you may use the results commercially is governed by the provider's terms of use, and that often depends on the plan: free tiers sometimes exclude commercial use.
For data protection, what counts is whether your inputs are used to train the models. With many services this can be switched off in the settings, which our LLM comparison shows for each provider. Do not enter customer data, trade secrets or health data into free tools. The European AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) also provides for transparency obligations for AI-generated content; if you publish images or videos, you should label them as AI-generated.
Practical tips for choosing
Anyone who pays for several AI services at once quickly notices that features overlap. A deliberate selection saves real money without making quality any worse.
- Start with the free tiers and pay only when you actually reach the limit in daily use.
- Check credits and expiry: do unused credits lapse at the end of the month or roll over?
- Watch the notice periods; most subscriptions renew automatically.
- Choose one tool per task rather than taking out a separate subscription for each function.
- Check the results: language models can contain errors, and image and music models cannot rule out copyright infringement.
More questions about AI tools
May I use AI-generated images and music commercially?
That depends on the service's terms of use and your plan. Free tiers sometimes do not allow commercial use. Read the licence clause and keep records of the plan and creation date. Our AI music comparison explains more about the legal position for songs.
Are my inputs used for training?
With some providers yes, with others only if you allow it. In the privacy settings this can usually be switched off. The LLM comparison shows which services let you turn off training use.
Do I have to label AI content?
The EU AI Act contains transparency obligations for AI-generated content, in particular for deepfakes. Regardless of that, labelling published material is a matter of fairness to readers and customers and can help avoid legal disputes.
