Is ChatGPT Business, Claude Team or Copilot worth it?

As of 19 October 2026. Prices come from the vendors’ pricing pages, retrieved from Switzerland on 19 October 2026; features come from their help articles on the same day. The vendors change tiers and prices without notice, and promotional prices expire. Sources at the end of the article.

A seat in ChatGPT Business costs CHF 15 a month with annual billing, CHF 16.22 including VAT. A personal Plus subscription costs CHF 20. Even so, many Swiss companies allow AI through personal accounts: in an EY survey of Swiss companies from May 2026, 29 per cent of respondents said they may use AI through their private account. I compared the business plans of ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Gemini.

A business plan mainly buys a contract, administration and collaboration. In capacity per person, a standard seat stays close to the personal plans. On paper, it pays for itself with 13 to 20 minutes saved a month, provided someone uses it.

What a business plan buys - and what it does not

A business plan for AI assistants such as ChatGPT or Claude is a subscription that the company takes out and manages: with a contract held by the company, centrally managed accounts and a shared workspace. The difference from a personal plan resembles that between a private car and a company car. The company car is no faster, but it belongs to the business and stays when someone leaves.

The contract ensures that company data does not flow into model training by default. Google words it more narrowly: Workspace content is not used for training outside your own domain without permission. What else the contract covers, from the data processing agreement to data location, is explained in No training on your company data.

Administration makes the biggest practical difference. The company pays centrally for all seats, and employees sign in with their company account (single sign-on). People who leave leave the shared work behind. With a personal account, the company has no access to any of it, neither during employment nor afterwards.

In the shared workspace, the team shares projects. With Claude, this is only available from Team upwards, not on Pro. The same applies to search across the whole organisation’s data. Connections to other tools such as Microsoft 365 already come with Pro, but in Claude Team administrators decide which ones are allowed.

Capacity per person only rises in part. For chat messages, OpenAI advertises Business as “unlimited, subject to abuse guardrails”, while Plus has usage caps. For the context window, however, Business is at Plus level. The context window is the amount of text the model processes at once, which for quick answers is 54’000 tokens (text units) according to OpenAI. ChatGPT Pro offers 128’000. For Codex, OpenAI’s programming tool, Plus and Business Standard have the same five-hour limits. According to Anthropic, a standard seat in Claude Team offers 1.25 times Pro usage per session.

01 · Contract

No training on company data

Company data does not flow into model training by default; at Google, not outside your own domain. The contracting party is the company.

02 · Administration

Accounts belong to the company

Central billing, sign-in via single sign-on. People who leave leave the shared work behind.

03 · Collaboration

One shared workspace

Projects and custom assistants live in the company's workspace and can be shared within the team.

04 · Capacity

Close to the personal plan

Context window and Codex limits as on ChatGPT Plus; at Claude, 1.25 times Pro. Much more only comes with the premium seat.

What the business plans cost in Switzerland

According to the vendors’ Swiss pricing pages, the business plans from OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and Google start at between CHF 14 and CHF 21 per person and month (as of 19 October 2026). ChatGPT Business costs CHF 15 per seat with annual billing and CHF 19 with monthly billing, for teams of 2 to 200 people. The pricing page does not say whether VAT is included. A Swiss account’s checkout shows CHF 16.22 and CHF 20.54, the listed prices plus 8.1 per cent VAT.

Anthropic publishes dollar prices excluding tax only and points customers elsewhere to the price display in their own account. For a Swiss account, a standard seat in Claude Team costs CHF 17 a month with annual billing and CHF 21 with monthly billing, including VAT. The premium seat costs CHF 85 and CHF 105 respectively. Team is available for 2 to 150 people; the personal Pro plan costs CHF 15 or CHF 17.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Business is an add-on to a Microsoft 365 Business plan for organisations with up to 300 users. Microsoft sells it with an annual commitment at a list price of CHF 17 per user and month, plus VAT. Anyone who signs up by 31 December 2026 pays CHF 14.57 in the first contract year; after that the list price applies. Larger companies pay CHF 24.30 for Microsoft 365 Copilot.

At Google, Gemini is part of the Workspace subscription. Business Standard for up to 300 users costs CHF 14 per user and month with an annual commitment, excluding tax, and CHF 16.80 without a commitment. Alongside Gemini, it includes mail, storage and the office apps. The cheaper Starter edition at CHF 7 only brings Gemini to Gmail and Vids.

Plan	Standard seat per month	Premium seat per month	VAT
ChatGPT Business	CHF 15 annual, CHF 19 monthly	CHF 81.10 / 102.70	not stated
Claude Team	CHF 17 annual, CHF 21 monthly	CHF 85 / 105	included
Microsoft 365 Copilot Business	CHF 17 annual, promotion CHF 14.57 in the first year	-	excluded
Google Workspace Business Standard with Gemini	CHF 14 annual, CHF 16.80 flexible	-	excluded

Vendor prices for Switzerland, as of 19 October 2026; premium seat annual / monthly. Some include VAT and some do not, so they are only comparable in order of magnitude. For Claude, the franc prices come from the price display of a Swiss account.

Standard or premium seat: how much usage is included

OpenAI and Anthropic now sell their business plans in two seat types that can be mixed within one team. The premium seat allows around five times as much usage as the standard seat. At ChatGPT, it costs exactly five times as much in the checkout window: CHF 81.10 against CHF 16.22 with annual billing. At Claude, it is CHF 85 against CHF 17, both including VAT.

With ChatGPT Business, the premium seat also removes the five-hour limit, and only premium seats get the so-called Dots, always-on agents. With Claude Team, a premium seat equals 6.25 times Pro usage per session, and a weekly limit applies to both seat types. Premium seats may use Anthropic’s Fable models for up to half of their weekly limit. On standard seats, as on Pro, they are not part of the allowance and run on separately paid credits.

If the allowance runs out, both vendors let you unlock extra usage through credits. In Claude Team, the organisation’s owners buy these credits at API rates, the price of the programming interface, and set a monthly spending limit. That way individual peaks can be absorbed without buying a premium seat straight away.

For most employees, the standard seat is enough. Premium pays off for the few people who work with AI for long stretches every day, for example with Codex or Claude Code on larger tasks.

Copilot and Gemini: is AI in Microsoft 365 and Workspace already paid for?

If you use Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, you are already paying for part of the AI. Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is included at no extra cost in eligible Microsoft 365 plans and is covered by the same data protection as the paid licence (Enterprise Data Protection). It mainly works with web data, though. It only uses company content if you provide it with your prompt, for example as an uploaded file.

The Microsoft 365 Copilot licence changes exactly that. With it, answers draw automatically on emails, files, meetings and calendars, retrieved via Microsoft Graph, the interface to the data in Microsoft 365. Pre-built agents such as Researcher and Analyst come on top. Not everything is included in the licence: Microsoft bills Copilot Cowork, Autopilot and other advanced features by consumption, on top of the licence price.

At Google, things are simpler. Since January 2025, the AI features have been part of the Business and Enterprise editions of Workspace. From Business Standard upwards, Gemini works in Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Meet and Chat. The Gemini app and Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) come on top with extended access. Business Starter only brings Gemini to Gmail and Vids, plus the Gemini app with basic access. Google also sells Gemini Enterprise, a separate agent platform, from USD 21 per licence and month.

For these companies, the first question is whether the existing tool is being used. A second AI subscription raises the cost per person considerably and only pays off for tasks the existing one does not cover.

Is a business plan worth it? The licence is rarely the bottleneck

A standard seat in ChatGPT Business at CHF 15 pays off as soon as it saves around 14 minutes of working time a month. The Swiss Federal Statistical Office reports labour costs for 2020 at an average of CHF 63.62 per hour. That figure covers wages, social contributions and other personnel costs. For the other standard seats between CHF 14 and CHF 21 the threshold is 13 to 20 minutes, and for a premium seat at CHF 81.10 to CHF 85 it is 76 to 80 minutes.

Economists Anders Humlum and Emilie Vestergaard measured actual savings in an NBER study, surveying 25’000 employees in 7’000 Danish workplaces at the end of 2024. On average, employees who use chatbots report saving around three per cent of their working time. At 160 working hours a month, that would be almost five hours, roughly twenty times the threshold.

The same study also shows the limit. Two years after ChatGPT’s launch, chatbots had no detectable effect on earnings or hours worked, and 85 per cent of users spend the time saved on other tasks.

Whether a seat pays off depends on use. In the Humlum and Vestergaard study, in workplaces that neither encouraged use nor provided a company tool or training, around 40 per cent of employees had used chatbots at work, about 7 per cent daily. Where the employer encouraged use, provided a company tool and trained people, the figures were 93 per cent, 28 per cent daily. There, 19 per cent said they saved more than an hour a day. A company tool and training without that encouragement went along with smaller effects. The figures are self-reported and show associations, not causes.

Which plan suits whom

Which plan fits depends above all on the software the company already uses, and on whether personal data goes in. With Microsoft 365, Copilot Chat is the starting point; with Google Workspace, it is Business Standard; with a free choice and at least two people, ChatGPT Business or Claude Team.

1. 01 · Microsoft 365 in-house

   Copilot Chat for everyone, licences for heavy users

   First check who uses Copilot Chat. The licence pays off for people who spend their day in Outlook, Teams and Excel.

2. 02 · Google Workspace in-house

   From Business Standard

   Gemini works in Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Drive and Meet. Starter is not enough for that.

3. 03 · Free choice, two people or more

   ChatGPT Business or Claude Team

   The tasks decide. Both include an agent tool: Codex at OpenAI, Claude Code at Anthropic.

4. 04 · Individual without personal data

   Personal plan with training switched off

   ChatGPT Business and Claude Team require two seats. Without customer data, ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro is enough.

5. 05 · Audit duties or more than 150 or 200 people

   Enterprise

   Automated user provisioning (SCIM), audit logs and custom retention rules only come at this tier with OpenAI and Anthropic. Claude Team ends at 150 people, ChatGPT Business at 200. EU data residency is only offered by OpenAI.

For a free choice of tool, the decision matrix for Swiss SMEs helps: it sorts ChatGPT, Claude and the other tools by use case. A combination is also possible, for example Copilot Chat for everyone and a few Claude Team seats for the people who work with Claude Code. That means two contracts and two data protection reviews, as set out in DSG and AI in the Swiss SME.

Frequently asked questions

Is ChatGPT Business worth it for a single person?

No, usually not. OpenAI only sells Business from two seats. For an individual without personal data, ChatGPT Plus with training switched off is cheaper.

Is ChatGPT Business more expensive than ChatGPT Plus?

No, not with annual billing: the standard seat costs CHF 15 a month, CHF 16.22 including VAT, while Plus costs CHF 20 (as of October 2026). Billed monthly, it is CHF 19, or CHF 20.54 including VAT, so roughly the same as Plus. What makes Business more expensive is the minimum of two seats.

What is the difference between ChatGPT Business and Claude Team?

Little in structure: both have standard and premium seats, do not train on company data by default and include an agent tool, Codex and Claude Code respectively. Including VAT, a standard seat with annual billing costs CHF 16.22 at ChatGPT and CHF 17 at Claude. ChatGPT Business covers up to 200 people, Claude Team up to 150.

Is there a Claude Business plan?

No. Anthropic’s business tier for 2 to 150 people is called Claude Team, followed by Claude Enterprise. Enterprise costs USD 20 per seat and month plus actual usage at API rates. It requires 20 seats and annual billing (as of October 2026).

Is Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat really free?

Yes, with an eligible Microsoft 365 subscription, Copilot Chat costs nothing extra. But it does not access your mail and files via Microsoft Graph. Simple agents based on instructions and public websites are included; Microsoft bills other agents by consumption.

What happens to the chats when someone leaves the company?

In a business plan, the shared work stays with the company. In ChatGPT Business, projects and custom GPTs pass to the workspace owners, who cannot see private chats either. In Claude Team, shared projects remain, and the person’s data stays in the organisation’s data export. With a personal account, the company has no access.

Practical conclusion

A business plan costs between CHF 14 and CHF 21 per person and month, and with annual billing ChatGPT’s is even cheaper than the personal plan. The cost risk lies in seats nobody uses, and in work that runs through personal accounts without rules.

The first step fits into this week. Count who in the company works with personal AI accounts, and check what Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace already includes. Then buy seats only for people with concrete tasks, and premium only for the few heavy users. For the seats to be used, people need clear approval and practice on real tasks. That is what my AI training for teams is built for: workshops on the tools your company already pays for. If no tool has been approved yet, the AI adoption programme is the better start: first a written tool and licence recommendation, then the training.

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Sources (checked 19 October 2026):

• Pläne und Preise - ChatGPT (retrieved 19 October 2026)
• Pricing - ChatGPT Learn (retrieved 19 October 2026)
• User lifecycle management - ChatGPT Learn (retrieved 19 October 2026)
• Plans & pricing - Claude by Anthropic (retrieved 19 October 2026)
• Upgrade - Claude, price display for a Swiss account (retrieved 19 October 2026, signed in)
• What is the Team plan? - Claude Help Center (updated 16 October 2026)
• Claude Fable models on your plan - Claude Help Center (2 September 2026)
• Manage usage credits for Team and seat-based Enterprise plans - Claude Help Center (updated 4 September 2026)
• What happens to a user’s data when they are removed from a Team or Enterprise organization? - Claude Help Center (updated 13 October 2026)
• Microsoft Copilot für Unternehmen - Microsoft Schweiz (retrieved 19 October 2026)
• KI für Unternehmensproduktivität - Microsoft Schweiz (retrieved 19 October 2026)
• License Options for Microsoft Copilot - Microsoft Learn (19 October 2026)
• What is Microsoft Copilot? - Microsoft Learn (14 October 2026)
• Optionen für flexible Preismodelle vergleichen - Google Workspace (retrieved 19 October 2026)
• KI-Funktionen von Gemini - jetzt Teil von Google Workspace-Abos - Google Workspace Help (updated 13 October 2026)
• Privacy Hub für generative KI in Google Workspace - Google Workspace Help (updated 13 October 2026)
• Google AI Pro und Ultra - Google (retrieved 19 October 2026)
• Schweizer Mehrwertsteuersätze - Eidgenössische Steuerverwaltung (retrieved 20 October 2026)
• Arbeitskosten im Jahr 2020 - Bundesamt für Statistik (2022)
• Humlum, Vestergaard: Still Waters, Rapid Currents - NBER Working Paper 33777 (May 2025, revised March 2026)
• Künstliche Intelligenz in Schweizer Unternehmen breit etabliert - EY Schweiz (27 May 2026)