The September 2026 price list, in one place
Every price below is the published US list price, checked on 3 September 2026. Prices move. Check the vendor page before you buy.
| Tool | Free tier | Individual paid | Business / team |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | $0/mo | Go $8, Plus $20, Pro from $100 | Business $20/user/mo annual, $25 monthly, 2-seat minimum |
| Claude | $0/mo | Pro $17/mo annual, $20 monthly | Team $20/seat annual, $25 monthly |
| Google AI | $0/mo | AI Plus $4.99, AI Pro $19.99, Ultra from $99.99 | Workspace Business Standard $14/user/mo, Gemini included |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot | none | none | $18/user/mo annual (promo off $21), $25.20 monthly |
| Zapier | $0, 100 tasks/mo | — | Professional from $19.99/mo annual for 750 tasks |
| Make | $0, 1,000 credits/mo | — | Core $9/mo for 10,000 credits |
OpenAI lists Go at $8, Plus at $20 and Pro from $100 on its pricing page. Anthropic lists Claude Pro at $17 a month on annual billing or $20 monthly. Google lists AI Plus at $4.99, AI Pro at $19.99 and Ultra from $99.99 on its subscriptions page.
Google Workspace Business Standard lists at $14 per user per month with Gemini included rather than sold as an add-on. Microsoft prices its Copilot add-on at $18 per user per month on an annual commitment, discounted from $21.
Three worked examples with real numbers
A two-person law firm in Austin. Two ChatGPT Business seats at $20 per user per month annually is $480 a year. That is the floor, because ChatGPT Business has a two-seat minimum. Total: $480 a year.
A five-person dental practice in Ohio. Five Google Workspace Business Standard seats at $14 each is $70 a month with Gemini included. Add Make Core at $9 a month to move form submissions into the practice system. Total: $948 a year.
A fifteen-person agency in Chicago. Fifteen ChatGPT Business seats is $300 a month. Add Zapier Professional at $89 a month annual for 5,000 tasks. Total: $4,668 a year — roughly one week of one mid-level salary at the BLS private-industry average of $46.60 per hour in total compensation.
Automation tools bill on volume, and the units are not obvious
Zapier and Make do not charge per person. They charge per unit of work, and the unit definitions decide your bill.
Zapier defines a task as "any successful action that runs in Zapier". Triggers do not count. Filters and Paths do not count. Formatter, Delay, Looping and Digest do not count. So a three-step Zap with one trigger, one filter and two actions burns two tasks per run, not four.
That changes the free-tier math. Zapier's free plan includes 100 tasks a month. At two tasks per run, that is 50 runs — roughly two a day.
Make's free plan includes 1,000 credits a month, and Make states that for fixed-usage apps "1 operation equals 1 credit". A four-module scenario costs about four credits per run, so 1,000 credits covers roughly 250 runs. Make's free plan also enforces a 15-minute minimum interval, which rules out anything needing to fire instantly.
The costs the pricing page does not show you
Annual lock-in. Almost every discount requires a twelve-month commitment. ChatGPT Business is $20 annually versus $25 monthly — a 20% penalty for staying flexible.
Seat minimums. ChatGPT Business requires two seats. A sole proprietor who wants business-grade data terms pays for two.
Staff time. The largest line, and it never appears on an invoice. BLS puts private-industry employer costs at $46.60 per hour worked in March 2026. Eight hours of setup costs about $373 in loaded compensation — more than eighteen months of ChatGPT Plus.
Outside help. Upwork's published benchmark puts AI engineers at $35 to $60 an hour and machine learning engineers at $50 to $200. We could not find a free, primary, US-wide source for AI agency retainer ranges, so treat any quoted figure as unverified.
What most articles get wrong about AI cost
Most cost articles compare monthly subscription prices. That is the smallest variable in the equation.
Every consumer plan here costs less than half a day of loaded staff time. A business that spends twenty hours choosing between a $20 and a $25 plan has already spent more than the three-year difference.
The second error is quoting a single "AI budget per employee" figure. Census Bureau data shows AI use between 17% and 20% of all US businesses from December 2025 to May 2026, but 37% among firms with at least 250 employees and under 20% among firms with fewer than 20. A per-employee benchmark averaged across those groups describes nobody.
The third is treating the free tier as a trial. For a solo operator writing a few emails a day, the free tier may be the permanent answer. The reason to leave it is usually the data terms, not the features.
Where these figures come from
- ChatGPT pricing · OpenAI business pricing · ChatGPT Business seats
- Claude pricing · Google AI subscriptions · Google Workspace US pricing
- Microsoft 365 Copilot for business
- Zapier pricing · What are tasks in Zapier
- Make pricing · Make credits explained
- BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, March 2026
- Upwork hourly rate benchmarks
- US Census Bureau, AI use by firm size
- IRS, Deducting Business Expenses
People also ask
- Is it safe to put my client data into ChatGPT?
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- What can AI actually do for a small business, and what can it not do?
