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A detailed comparison of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, NotebookLM, and more — with specific pricing, limits, features, and use cases
"Which AI should I actually use?" — This page answers that question. We compare 8 major AI services with specific free tier limits, paid plan details, and concrete recommendations for each use case.
Compare 8 major AI services that anyone can use from a browser or app. See exact free tier limits and what you get with paid plans.
| CChatGPTOpenAI | CClaudeAnthropic | GGeminiGoogle | PPerplexityPerplexity AI | NNotebookLMGoogle | MMicrosoft CopilotMicrosoft | GGrokxAI | DDeepSeekDeepSeek (China) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plans | ||||||||
| Free Plan | ○4o mini unlimited 4o 10 msgs/5h | ○Sonnet 4.5 15-40 msgs/5h | ○Flash general use DR 5/month | ○Search unlimited Pro 5/day | ○100 notebooks 50 chats/day | ○Basic chat throttled at peak | △Basic chat limited msgs | ◎Fully free No limits |
| Standard | Plus $20/mo | Pro $20/mo | AI Pro $19.99/mo | Pro $20/mo | Plus (incl. in AI Pro) | M365 $9.99/mo | X Premium ~$8/mo | Free (all features) |
| Premium | Pro $200/mo | Max $100-200/mo | Ultra $249.99/mo | Max $200/mo | — | +Copilot $30/user/mo | SuperGrok $30/mo | API $0.14/1M tokens |
| Context | 128K | 200K | 1M | — | 1M | 128K | 2M | 128K |
Capabilities | ||||||||
| Japanese | ○ | ◎ | ○ | △ | ○ | △ | △ | △ |
| Writing | ◎ | ◎ | ○ | △ | △ | ○ | ○ | △ |
| Coding | ○ | ◎ | ○ | △ | × | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| Image Gen | ◎ | × | ○ | × | × | ○ | ○ | × |
| Search | ◎ | ○ | ◎ | ◎ | × | ○ | ◎ | × |
| Analysis | ○ | ○ | ◎ | △ | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
Performance | ||||||||
| Speed | ◎ | △ | ◎ | ◎ | ○ | ○ | ◎ | ○ |
| Accuracy | ○ | ◎ | ○ | ◎ | ◎ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
Business | ||||||||
| Security | ○ | ◎ | ○ | ○ | ○ | ◎ | △ | △ |
| Commercial | ◎ | ◎ | ○ | ○ | ○ | ◎ | ○ | ◎ |
| Integration | ◎ | ○ | ◎ | △ | △ | ◎ | △ | △ |
Overall | ||||||||
| Beginner | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ |
| Best For | All-round assistant | Coding & long-form writing | Research & Google ecosystem | Research & fact-checking | Study & document analysis | Office productivity | Real-time info & social analysis | Free math, code & logic |
What is a token? Tokens are the units AI uses to process text. In English, 1 token ≈ ¾ of a word. 200K tokens ≈ a 500-page book. 1M tokens ≈ 3,000 pages.
Specific features, strengths, and weaknesses of each AI service.
Most versatile AI — handles anything from writing to image/video generation. Memory feature makes it smarter over time. Largest plugin ecosystem. Best for users who want one AI for everything.
Free tier limited to 10 msgs/5hrs on GPT-4o (then drops to lower model). Pro plan ($200/mo) is expensive. Coding accuracy trails Claude (~85% vs ~95%).
Best coding accuracy in the industry (SWE-Bench 80.9%, ~95% functional accuracy). Handles 200K tokens = an entire book. Best Japanese translation quality. Most safety-conscious AI.
Slower responses (2-5 seconds). No image or video generation. Free tier limit is vague (varies by server load). No equivalent to ChatGPT's Memory feature.
Industry-leading 1M token context window. Deep Google ecosystem integration. AI Pro ($19.99) includes NotebookLM Pro — great value. Generous free tier.
Output formatting can be sloppy (needs explicit formatting instructions). Ultra ($249.99/mo) is very expensive. Creative writing quality trails ChatGPT and Claude.
The most reliable AI for factual research — every claim has a source link. Real-time web access. Use multiple AI models from one interface. Ad-free, no SEO spam.
Weak at creative writing and long conversations. Not suited for advanced coding. Japanese language quality is limited. Better as a search tool than a general assistant.
Near-zero hallucination because it only references your uploaded documents. Audio Overview enables learning on the go. Free tier is generous (100 notebooks). Ideal for students and researchers.
Not a general chatbot — you must upload documents first. No real-time web search (except Deep Research). Not suited for creative generation. Only useful for document-centric tasks.
The only AI that works directly inside Office 365 apps. Excel formula creation, Word document summaries, PowerPoint slide generation — all done by AI within the app. Easy enterprise deployment.
Free tier is throttled during busy hours. Standalone AI quality trails ChatGPT/Claude. Limited value outside Office workflows. Pricing can be confusing across plans.
Only AI with real-time X/Twitter data access. Massive 2M token context. Relatively affordable pricing. More permissive content policy.
No audio or video processing. Multimodal capabilities lag behind GPT-4o. Japanese quality is below the top 3. Limited value for non-X/Twitter users.
Completely free with no limits. Math/logic performance rivals paid models (~90% accuracy vs GPT-4o's ~83%). Open source with full transparency. API pricing is industry-lowest.
No image or audio input support. Creative writing and casual chat trail ChatGPT. Data privacy concerns (Chinese company). Narrower knowledge base than major alternatives.
Find the right AI for your task, with specific reasoning.
Code generation, debugging, refactoring, test writing
Claude leads SWE-Bench (real GitHub issue resolution) at 77-80%, the industry's highest. Claude Code reads entire codebases from the terminal, edits multiple files simultaneously, runs tests, and automates Git. ChatGPT/Codex scores 92% on HumanEval with strong multi-step accuracy. DeepSeek is completely free with 96% on AIME math, ideal for cost-conscious development.
Articles, emails, reports, fiction, translation
Claude scored 62% on a Japanese recruitment exam (GPT-4: 55%, Gemini: 52%), ranking #1 in Japanese quality. Produces natural, human-sounding prose with accurate honorific usage. ChatGPT's Memory feature learns your tone over time and excels at structured bulk content (auto-generates 36-page reports). Gemini scores 89.8% on multilingual MMLU and weaves web-sourced facts into articles.
Verification, literature review, market research, cited answers
Perplexity achieves 95% citation accuracy (ChatGPT: 88%), tying 78% of claims to sources (ChatGPT: 62%). Deep Research cross-references 100-300 sources in 2-4 minutes. ChatGPT Deep Research takes 20+ min but produces detailed 36-page reports. Grok analyzes 100M+ X/Twitter posts daily in real-time — the only AI for live social trend research.
Summaries, quiz generation, flashcards, audio learning
NotebookLM is free with 50-source upload (PDF, YouTube, audio). Generates podcast-style audio summaries with two AI hosts — a unique feature no competitor offers. Auto-creates quizzes, flashcards, and mind maps. ChatGPT Study Mode acts as an interactive tutor guiding learning step-by-step. Gemini can analyze up to 6 hours of video directly and process 1M tokens of materials at once.
Spreadsheets, charts, statistics, large dataset processing
ChatGPT supports 512MB file uploads with a full Python environment (pandas, numpy, matplotlib) for interactive chart creation and statistical analysis. Imports directly from Google Drive and OneDrive. Copilot in Excel creates pivot tables and dashboards via natural language, with a COPILOT function for in-cell AI processing. Gemini processes 1M tokens (~3,000 pages) of data in a single conversation.
Email, documents, meeting notes, presentations, Excel
Copilot is embedded in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. Word Agent creates documents from prompts, PowerPoint auto-generates full slide decks, Outlook provides one-tap email triage. Gemini handles Gmail summaries, Docs drafts, Sheets formulas, and Meet multilingual transcripts. Claude can create and download Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and PDF files directly in conversation.
Pricing and specs for API models used in apps and services.
| Model | Input Price |
|---|---|
OpenAI: GPT-4o OpenAI | $2.50/1M tokens |
OpenAI: GPT-4o-mini OpenAI | $0.150/1M tokens |
OpenAI: GPT-4.1 OpenAI | $2.00/1M tokens |
OpenAI: o3 Mini OpenAI | $1.10/1M tokens |
Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 Anthropic | $15.00/1M tokens |
Anthropic: Claude Sonnet 4 Anthropic | $3.00/1M tokens |
| $1.25/1M tokens | |
Google: Gemini 2.0 Flash Google | $0.100/1M tokens |
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 DeepSeek | $0.320/1M tokens |
Mistral Large 2411 Mistral AI | $2.00/1M tokens |