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.