If you are a consultant or small business owner, I would recommend the Claude Max $100 US per month plan. I’ve tried ChatGPT Pro, ChatGPT Teams, Claude Pro.
In my side-by-side tests, Claude does noticeably better writing than ChatGPT with the same prompts. Claude Cowork is a phenomenal tool that ChatGPT doesn’t have yet, and all the top developers I know use Claude Code over ChatGPT Codex, which says something. Claude also recently released Design, which is a phenomenal breakthrough tool.
If you can’t afford that, then use this matrix.
| Criteria | AI | Monthly cost | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Only 1 tool and least expensive | ChatGPT Pro | US$20 | |
| Only 1 tool but I’m prepared to pay for the best tool | Claude Max | US$100 | |
| Multiple tools but least expensive | Claude Pro + ChatGPT Pro | US$ 40 | Use Claude for writing, design. Use Chat for all else including coding. |
For Research use Perplexity
I consistently hear that the paid plan for Perplexity is the best tool for advanced, sophisticated academic or scientific research. It’s apparently the least likely to hallucinate. I have been fine with the research capabilities of ChatGPT and Codex, and I haven’t wanted to add an extra tool, but I thought I would mention that I consistently read this advice.
How are the $20 plans for ChatGPT Pro and Claude Pro different?
I use AI for 2 to 4 hours a day. With ChatGPT Pro, I never once ran into any limits. Claude Pro, on the other hand, has daily, weekly and monthly limits. When I was writing blog posts in Claude, I would only be able to write two or three before I ran into a limit that only reset every 5 hours. I found this really frustrating, so I eventually upgraded to Claude Max.