Writing
Claude or ChatGPT
Claude for long-form editing; ChatGPT for general writing plus images.
Updated 2026-07-17
AI Pricing Comparison 2026
Every major AI subscription plan compared. Click any service for a full breakdown — plans, limits, and who it's for.
Best picks by use case
Start here if the full pricing table feels too dense.
Coding
Cursor or GitHub Copilot
Cursor for agentic IDE work; Copilot for lower-cost autocomplete in your editor.
Research
Perplexity or Gemini
Perplexity for cited web answers; Gemini if Google ecosystem and storage matter.
Creative
Midjourney or DALL-E
Midjourney for polished image style; DALL-E when you already pay for ChatGPT.
Lowest cost
Free tiers + DeepSeek
Start free for light use, then compare low-cost subscriptions and APIs.
API usage
Token calculator
Check whether pay-per-token beats a flat $20 subscription for your workload.
💡
The $20/month convergence
ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, Gemini AI Pro, and Perplexity Pro all cost $20/month in 2026 — but they cover very different use cases. Find your right ones →
💬 Chat & General(8)
| Service | Subscription | Free | Entry | Standard | Power | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ChatGPT OpenAI | Yes | Free Free | $8 Go | $20 Plus | $200 Pro 20× ($200) | Full review → |
Claude Anthropic | Yes | Free Free | $20 Pro | $100 Max (5×) | $200 Max (20×) | Full review → |
Google Gemini Google | API only | Free Free | $4.99 AI Plus | $19.99 AI Pro | $99.99 AI Ultra | Full review → |
Grok xAI | Yes | Free Free | $10 SuperGrok Lite | $30 SuperGrok | $300 SuperGrok Heavy | Full review → |
Microsoft Copilot Microsoft | Yes | Free Free | $9.99 Microsoft 365 Personal + Copilot | $21 Microsoft 365 Copilot Business | $21 Microsoft 365 Copilot Business | Full review → |
DeepSeek DeepSeek | API only | Free Free (Web Chat) | — | — | — | Full review → |
Mistral Vibe Mistral AI | Yes | Free Free | $14.99 Pro | $24.99 Team | $24.99 Team | Full review → |
Kimi Moonshot AI | Yes | Free Adagio (Free) | $19 Moderato | $39 Allegretto | $199 Vivace | Full review → |
💻 Coding(3)
| Service | Subscription | Free | Entry | Standard | Power | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cursor Anysphere | Yes | Free Hobby (Free) | $20 Pro | $40 Teams (Standard) | $200 Ultra | Full review → |
GitHub Copilot GitHub (Microsoft) | Yes | Free Free | $10 Pro | $39 Pro+ | $100 Max | Full review → |
Devin Desktop Cognition AI | Yes | Free Free | $20 Pro | $40 Teams | $200 Max | Full review → |
🔍 Research & Analysis(1)
| Service | Subscription | Free | Entry | Standard | Power | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Perplexity Perplexity AI | Yes | Free Free | $20 Pro | $200 Max | $200 Max | Full review → |
🖼️ Image Generation(6)
| Service | Subscription | Free | Entry | Standard | Power | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Midjourney Midjourney | Yes | — | $10 Basic | $30 Standard | $120 Mega | Full review → |
DALL-E (via ChatGPT) OpenAI | Yes | Free API (pay-per-image) | $20 Via ChatGPT Plus | — | — | Full review → |
Ideogram Ideogram AI | Yes | Free Free | $8 Basic (Legacy) | $20 Plus | $60 Pro | Full review → |
FLUX (Black Forest Labs) Black Forest Labs | API only | Free API (pay-per-image) | — | — | — | Full review → |
Stable Diffusion Stability AI (open-source) | API only | Free Local (Free) | — | — | — | Full review → |
Adobe Firefly Adobe | Yes | Free Free | $9.99 Firefly Standard | $19.99 Firefly Pro | $199.99 Firefly Premium | Full review → |
🎬 Video(2)
| Service | Subscription | Free | Entry | Standard | Power | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Runway Runway AI | Yes | Free Free | $15 Standard | $35 Pro | $95 Max | Full review → |
Kling AI Kuaishou | Yes | Free Free | $8.80 Standard | $25.99 Pro | $127.99 Ultra | Full review → |
🎙️ Voice(1)
| Service | Subscription | Free | Entry | Standard | Power | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ElevenLabs ElevenLabs | Yes | Free Free | $6 Starter | $22 Creator | $990 Business | Full review → |
🎵 Music(1)
| Service | Subscription | Free | Entry | Standard | Power | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Suno Suno AI | Yes | Free Free | $10 Pro | $30 Premier | $30 Premier | Full review → |
Prices verified 2026-07-17. Official pricing recheck completed for all 14 stale services on 2026-07-17: 13 from parsed official pages and Grok from user direct observation of xAI's official pricing page. Source grades: A=official pricing page, B=official blog/SNS, C=direct observation, D=community report.