Which fits your task?
The practical split is where the AI lives. Copilot's paid value is in the Microsoft 365 apps, bundled with Office and cloud storage. ChatGPT is a separate subscription focused on the assistant itself, with coding and agent features.
What we compared
We compared the individual plans for writing, office documents, research and everyday questions: what is free, what paid tiers add and what they cost. Copilot for work accounts and GitHub Copilot, a separate coding product, are not covered.
This comparison is based on the official pricing pages checked on October 24, 2026. AppFor.ai has not run both assistants on the same test set, so there are no scores or winner from our own testing.
The differences that matter
Free use: Copilot is free with a signed-in Microsoft account on the web, Windows, Mac and mobile, with chat, search and image creation. ChatGPT Free offers unlimited text chats with GPT-6, within abuse guardrails, and limited uploads, images, voice, deep research and Codex.
Office apps: Microsoft 365 Personal and higher plans add Copilot in the Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook desktop apps. Premium and Pro add Researcher, Analyst and Cowork for multi-step tasks.
Assistant features: ChatGPT Plus adds advanced reasoning with GPT-6, projects, scheduled tasks, custom GPTs, expanded Codex and ChatGPT Work on desktop, web and mobile; Pro adds GPT-6 Astra.
Cost and constraints
ChatGPT (monthly, US prices): Free; Go at $8, which may include ads; Plus at $20; Pro from $100, with three usage tiers.
Copilot through Microsoft 365 (monthly, US prices): Personal at $9.99; Family at $12.99 for up to six people, with the AI features for the subscription owner only; Premium at $19.99 with extensive Copilot usage; Pro at $99.99, monthly billing only, with the highest usage. Microsoft offers a one-month free trial of Personal, Family and Premium, and the plans include the Office apps; Personal comes with 1 TB of cloud storage.
At about $20, ChatGPT Plus and Microsoft 365 Premium are the closest match; Premium also includes the Office apps. Prices and features vary by country.
Choose based on your needs
Not sure? Take a real document or spreadsheet you work on and ask both to summarize it and draft a follow-up email, then compare accuracy and how much editing you needed. See our ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot profiles.
Go to the source
Sources & further reading
Based on the official documentation below. Features and access can change; check the provider before making a decision.
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