AI chatbots compared: 7 language models and their subscription prices
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Mistral, Grok and DeepSeek – entry plans from €4.99 to €17.84 a month. We compare prices, free tiers, context windows and how your data is handled. Prices are taken straight from the providers' websites, as of 30 October 2026.
Find the right chatbot
Web search, file analysis and voice mode are now offered by all of them – as filters they would be useless. Only the points that genuinely set the providers apart are listed here.
Language models compared by subscription price
Sorted by the cheapest paid plan. USD and EUR amounts are compared 1:1 because the exchange rate changes constantly.
DeepSeek
deepseek.com
Features
Plans
- Chat – $0 Full feature set without a subscription
- API – pay as you go Billed per million tokens
Annual discount: n/a · Top plan: only the API is billed
Pros
- No subscription needed – the chat is completely free
- The model weights are freely available, so it can be run on your own hardware
- Very strong performance in mathematics and programming
Cons
- The privacy policy explicitly states that data is stored in the People's Republic of China
- Opting out of training use is possible only by email
- No data processing agreement (Auftragsverarbeitungsvertrag) for business use
- No image generation, no voice mode
Google Gemini
gemini.google.com
Features
Plans
- Free – €0 Flash-Lite model, 15 GB storage
- Google AI Plus – €4.99/month Flash model, double limits, 400 GB storage
- Google AI Pro – €21.99/month Gemini 4 Argon, four times the limits, 5 TB storage, YouTube Premium Lite
- Google AI Ultra – €99.99 or €219.99/month 5x or 20x the Pro limits, from 20 TB storage, YouTube Premium
Annual discount: No · Top plan: up to €219.99
Pros
- Prices natively in euros including VAT – no exchange-rate risk
- Your contracting party in the EEA is Google Ireland Limited, not a US company
- The Pro plan includes 5 TB of cloud storage, YouTube Premium Lite and Google Home Premium
- Even Google AI Plus at €4.99 comes with 400 GB of storage
Cons
- Chats are used for training by default, partly with human review
- According to Google, conversations reviewed by humans are kept for up to three years – even after you delete them from your history
- No annual discount
ChatGPT (OpenAI)
openai.com
Features
Plans
- Free – €0 Text chats with GPT-6, otherwise tight limits, 27,000-token context
- Go – €8/month More uploads and images – may contain ads
- Plus – €23/month Reasoning models, Deep Research, extended Codex use
- Pro – €103, €229 or €510/month Three usage tiers, Pro reasoning, 400,000-token context, API credit
- Business – €26/user, €21 with annual billing From two users
Annual discount: Business only · Top plan: Pro up to €510
Pros
- Prices in euros including 19% VAT for Germany
- Covers text, images, voice, data analysis and programming in one plan
- The widest choice of extensions and integrations
- The controller for users in the EEA is OpenAI Ireland Limited
Cons
- The Go plan may contain ads – you pay and still see advertising
- Go, Plus and Pro are available monthly only; an annual discount applies just to Business
- Chats are used for training by default; you have to actively set the opt-out
- Big jump upwards: the smallest Pro tier costs €103 instead of €23 for Plus
xAI Grok
x.ai
Features
Plans
- Free – $0 Limited chat and agent requests
- Plus – $8/month Grok Chat, Voice, Imagine and Build, Cursor, X Premium checkmark
- Premium – $30/month 4x Plus usage, latest models, images and videos
- Super – $100/month 15x Plus usage, priority at peak times
- Ultra – $200/month 50x Plus usage
- Teams – from $30/user per month Shared quota, central billing
Annual discount: No · Top plan: Ultra $200
Pros
- Direct access to current posts on X
- Even the $8 Plus plan includes image generation and the programming tool Cursor
- The usage quota renews weekly rather than monthly
Cons
- The newest Grok models are only available from Premium at $30
- All features share one quota – including use in Cursor
- Third-party models in Cursor are billed on top at API list prices
- Processing relies on a “legitimate interest” rather than on your consent
Microsoft Copilot
microsoft.com
Features
Plans
- Copilot (free) – €0 Chat without a subscription, with limits
- Microsoft 365 Single – €10/month or €99/year 1 person, Office apps, 1 TB OneDrive, Copilot
- Microsoft 365 Family – €13/month or €129/year Up to 6 people, 2 TB shared – but AI only for the buyer
- Microsoft 365 Premium – €22/month or €219/year Up to 6 people, 2 TB, more generous limits and agentic AI – buyer only
- Microsoft 365 Pro – €110/month, monthly only 5 TB shared, highest Copilot usage volume
Annual discount: about 17% · Top plan: Microsoft 365 Pro €110
Pros
- Prices natively in euros including VAT
- Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and 1 TB of OneDrive are in the same plan
- Around 17% off with annual payment
- Copilot sits directly inside the Office apps rather than in a separate window
Cons
- On the Family plan the AI features cannot be shared with the other five people – only the buyer gets them
- “Copilot Pro” no longer exists as a standalone consumer subscription
- The context window is not stated
- No dedicated programming tool in the plan
Claude (Anthropic)
claude.com
Features
Plans
- Free – $0 Only the Sonnet and Haiku models, no Opus
- Pro – $20/month, $17 with annual billing ($200 upfront) Opus, Claude Code, Projects
- Max – from $100/month 5x or 20x Pro usage, monthly API credit
- Team – $25/user, $20 with annual billing 2 to 150 seats; Premium seats $125 or $100
Annual discount: 15% · Top plan: Max from $100
Pros
- The only provider in the comparison that trains on your chats only if you explicitly agree
- Incognito chat is never used for training
- Claude Code, a dedicated programming tool, is included in the Pro plan
- The controller for users in the EEA is Anthropic Ireland, Limited
Cons
- No image generation
- The free plan does not include the most powerful model, Opus
- Prices in US dollars, even on the German site
- No voice mode on desktop
Mistral (Vibe)
mistral.ai
Features
Plans
- Free – €0 Chat, web search and Vibe for coding, with limits
- Student – $5.99/month net Pro features with proof of student status
- Pro – €17.84/month 150 quick answers a day, Vibe all day, API credit
- Team – €29.74/user per month 200 quick answers, up to 30 GB per user; price calculator from €59 a month
Annual discount: No · Top plan: Team €29.74/user
Pros
- French provider with data hosted in the EU – the strongest GDPR argument in the comparison
- Prices in euros including VAT for Germany
- Open models such as Mistral 7B can be run on your own hardware
- Students pay only $5.99 net with proof of status
Cons
- The most expensive entry point among the providers with euro prices
- No annual discount
- According to Mistral, commercial self-hosting requires a separate licence
- The context window is not stated consistently
Entry prices at a glance
Cheapest paid plan per provider, per month. DeepSeek has no paid plan for consumers.
What does an AI subscription cost per year?
Projected over twelve months at the providers' list prices, as of 30 October 2026. Dollar amounts additionally include 19 % VAT, excluding any foreign-currency fee.
| Plan | Billing | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Google AI Plus | 12 × €4.99 | €59.88 |
| ChatGPT Go | 12 × €8 | €96 |
| Microsoft 365 Single | Annual plan | €99 |
| Grok Plus | 12 × $8 net | $96 ($114.24 gross) |
| Claude Pro | Annual plan, paid upfront | $200 ($238 gross) |
| Mistral Pro | 12 × €17.84 | €214.08 |
| Google AI Pro | 12 × €21.99 | €263.88 |
| ChatGPT Plus | 12 × €23 | €276 |
| Claude Pro | 12 × $20 net | $240 ($285.60 gross) |
If you hold two subscriptions in parallel – say ChatGPT Plus for writing and Claude Pro for programming – you quickly end up above 500 € a year. So first check whether a bundle such as Microsoft 365 or Google AI Pro already covers your own usage.
Which chatbot can do what? The feature matrix
All 7 can write answers, search the web, read PDFs and talk – that is no use as a selection criterion. It gets interesting with billing, privacy and whatever else comes with the plan.
| Provider | Prices in euros | EU contracting party | No training on chats | Image generation included | Programming tool | Self-hostable | Storage or Office included | Team plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | ||||||||
| Google Gemini | ||||||||
| ChatGPT (OpenAI) | ||||||||
| xAI Grok | ||||||||
| Microsoft Copilot | ||||||||
| Claude (Anthropic) | ||||||||
| Mistral (Vibe) |
Only one does not train on your chats
With Claude, chats are used for training only with explicit consent, and incognito mode never. With all the others, use is the default – you have to set the opt-out yourself in the settings.
Euro prices are becoming the norm
Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Mistral quote gross euro prices for Germany. Only Anthropic and xAI still bill in US dollars net – there, 19 % VAT and, depending on your card, a foreign-currency fee come on top.
Sometimes you pay twice
Google AI Pro includes 5 TB of storage and YouTube Premium Lite, and Microsoft 365 brings Office and 1 TB of OneDrive. If you already pay for these services, you effectively get the AI there for free.
Information according to the providers' websites, privacy policies and documentation, as of 30 October 2026. These providers change their plans several times a year – check the current pricing page before signing up.
Which AI subscription is worth it, and for whom?
The performance gap between the top models has narrowed in 2026 more than the marketing promises suggest. For most everyday tasks – drafting, summarising, translating and researching – ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini deliver comparably good results. The decision therefore comes down less to answer quality than to price, privacy and what else comes with the subscription.
The cheapest bill: check the bundles
If you already pay for cloud storage or an office suite, look there first. Google AI Pro at €21.99 includes 5 TB of storage, YouTube Premium Lite and Google Home Premium; even Google AI Plus at €4.99 comes with 400 GB of storage. Microsoft 365 Single at €10 a month or €99 a year brings Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, 1 TB of OneDrive and Copilot. Measured against the standalone price of a pure AI subscription such as ChatGPT Plus at €23, that is clearly the better deal.
There is, however, a trap in the Microsoft 365 Family plan: it covers up to six people, but only the buyer gets the AI features. If you book the subscription for the family and assume everyone can use Copilot, you pay for something that only one person receives.
Privacy: the three questions that matter
First: are my chats used for training? For six of the seven providers compared, the answer is yes, and by default. Only Anthropic does it the other way round: Claude uses your conversations only once you explicitly agree, and never the incognito chat. With all the others you have to find the opt-out in the settings yourself.
Second: who is my contracting party? For users in the European Economic Area (EEA), Google's party is Google Ireland Limited – an EU company with the obligations that come with that. OpenAI and Anthropic also name Irish companies as controllers for the EEA (OpenAI Ireland Limited and Anthropic Ireland, Limited respectively). Mistral is based in France and keeps its data in the EU. For xAI, the pricing page says subscriptions are sold by X Subscription Corp, and for DeepSeek the privacy policy explicitly states that data is stored in the People's Republic of China.
Third: how long does the data stay? Google is particularly clear here: conversations that humans have reviewed for quality assurance are kept for up to three years – even if you deleted the chat from your history long ago. Anyone entering professional content should know that.
The context window: the underrated number
How much text a model can keep in view at once decides whether you can have a 40-page contract analysed in one go or have to break it into pieces. It is measured in tokens; one token is roughly 0.75 words.
Gemini states up to one million tokens and uploads of up to 1,500 pages. Claude states up to one million tokens on all plans, depending on the model you choose. With ChatGPT the picture is confusing: the free plan manages 27,000 tokens in fast mode, Go and Plus 54,000 (256,000 when thinking), and only the Pro plan reaches 128,000 in fast mode and 400,000 when thinking. Microsoft and xAI give no figures at all.
Who can save themselves the subscription
All seven providers have a permanent free tier. If you only use a chatbot occasionally, you will get along fine with it – the limits only bite with intensive use. Mistral is broadly equipped even on its free plan: it includes chat, web search, image generation and limited programming sessions with Vibe. DeepSeek charges nothing at all for private use, but moves your data to China in return.
If, on the other hand, you work with it every day for your job, you quickly hit the limits. Then look at the amount of usage rather than the price: Claude Max costs from $100 net, the smallest ChatGPT Pro tier €103 – both deliver many times the quota of the standard plans.
Before you sign up: trial month, cancellation, limits
Use the trial month: Microsoft offers a free month to try Microsoft 365 Single, Family and Premium, and Google also names a trial period for Google AI Pro. Both subscriptions then renew automatically – note the end date in your calendar.
Mind the cancellation deadline: The subscriptions can be ended monthly, but not at the last minute. xAI, for example, requires you to cancel at least 24 hours before renewal. At Google there is no refund for a billing period already begun.
Understand the limits: “Unlimited” does not really mean unlimited at any provider. In Gemini, Google uses compute-based limits that renew every five hours until a weekly limit is reached. xAI renews the shared quota weekly, and OpenAI speaks of unlimited text chats “with protection against abuse”. If you regularly hit limits, check before jumping to a higher plan whether buying extra credit is cheaper – Google and xAI offer that.
What we do not rate
We do not draw up a ranking of answer quality. The common benchmarks measure exam questions, not your working day, and the order changes with every model update. Nor do we quote prices that we could not read on the provider's own site – which is why Perplexity is missing, as its pricing page blocks automated access. Meta AI, Qwen and You.com have no paid consumer subscription and are therefore not included.
A note on the xAI information: the pricing page on x.ai now trades as “SpaceX Super Intelligence” and bundles Grok with X Premium features and the programming tool Cursor. Instead of the earlier two SuperGrok tiers there are now five consumer plans from Free to Ultra at $200; all prices exclude VAT.
Frequently asked questions
Entry plans range from €4.99 for Google AI Plus to €17.84 for Mistral Pro. In between are ChatGPT Go at €8, Grok Plus at $8 net, Microsoft 365 Single at €10 and Claude Pro at $17 net with annual billing or $20 monthly. DeepSeek has no paid plan at all – the chat is completely free. All 7 providers compared also have a permanent free tier. At the top end the range is wide: ChatGPT Pro costs up to €510, Google AI Ultra up to €219.99 and Grok Ultra $200 a month.
Claude is the only provider in the comparison whose training on your chats requires your explicit consent; incognito mode is never used for training. When it comes to where your data is stored, Mistral is the clearest choice – the French provider keeps its data in the EU. For users in the European Economic Area (EEA), Google, OpenAI and Anthropic each name an Irish company as the controller. Google, however, trains on chats by default and keeps conversations reviewed by humans for up to three years. For DeepSeek, the privacy policy explicitly states that data is stored in the People's Republic of China.
Yes, 4 of 7 by now: Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Mistral quote euro prices including VAT for Germany. Anthropic and xAI still bill in US dollars net. With 19% German VAT, $20 for Claude Pro becomes roughly $23.80, and depending on your credit card a foreign-currency fee may come on top. Be careful when converting: the euro prices are not exchange-rate conversions – ChatGPT Plus costs €23 in Germany, but $20 plus tax in the US.
The context window states how much text a model can keep in view at once – measured in tokens, where one token is roughly 0.75 words. If you want long contracts, whole books or extensive source code analysed, you need a large window. Gemini and Claude state up to one million tokens, for Claude depending on the model. ChatGPT sits between 27,000 and 400,000 tokens depending on model and plan. Microsoft, Mistral and xAI give no consistent figures.
For consumers, only two providers offer a discount: Claude gives 15% off the Pro plan, and Microsoft about 17% off Microsoft 365. OpenAI offers annual billing only for the Business plan (€21 instead of €26 per user); Google, Mistral and xAI do not offer it at all. Where there is a discount, weigh it up: the market moves fast, and switching is the most effective lever when a competitor catches up.
5 of the 7 providers include a dedicated programming tool in the plan: Claude brings Claude Code as early as the Pro plan, OpenAI provides Codex, Google the Antigravity development platform, Mistral the Vibe tool for the terminal and development environment, and Grok includes Cursor from the Plus plan. Microsoft Copilot for consumers has none – GitHub Copilot is a separate product with its own billing.
Yes, with 2 of the 7 providers: Mistral and DeepSeek publish model weights, so the models can be run on your own server. For companies with strict data protection requirements this is often the only workable route, because no data leaves the building at all. Mind the licence: Mistral permits open models such as Mistral 7B under Apache 2.0, but requires a separate licence for commercial use of other models. Performance also depends heavily on the graphics hardware available, and the top models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google are available only as a service.
With euro prices, as at Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Mistral, the final amount is fixed: €23 for ChatGPT Plus is €23 on your statement. With net dollar prices, as at Anthropic and xAI, VAT (Umsatzsteuer) is added only at checkout, and your bank converts the dollar amount at the day's rate – so the amount varies slightly from month to month. If you run a business and enter a VAT ID, providers that use the reverse-charge procedure – OpenAI points this out at checkout – issue an invoice without VAT, and you account for the tax yourself.
Perplexity blocks automated access to its own pricing page, so the plans cannot be checked at the source. As a matter of principle we do not quote prices that we have not read on the provider's own site. As soon as the information is publicly accessible again, we will add Perplexity. Meta AI and Qwen are also not included, because they have no paid consumer subscription.
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