Which AI subscription to pick for your budget: $0 / $10 / $20 (and above)

Checked: October 24, 2026. All prices are US list prices per month, excluding tax. Every number comes from the vendor's own pricing page (sources are listed at the bottom). If a page didn't state a number, or we couldn't load it, we say so instead of guessing. Want every plan in one table? See our AI subscription prices page. This guide answers a different question: what's worth paying for at each budget?

TL;DR

| Budget | General chat | Coding | Research / writing | |---|---|---|---| | $0 | ChatGPT Free (unlimited GPT-6 text chats) | GitHub Copilot Free (2,000 suggestions/mo) + Jules free (15 tasks/day) | Gemini Free (includes Deep Research) or Claude Free | | ~$5–10 | Google AI Plus $4.99 or ChatGPT Go $8 | GitHub Copilot Pro $10 (unlimited completions) | Google AI Plus $4.99 | | ~$15–20 | ChatGPT Plus $20 | Claude Pro $20 (Claude Code) or ChatGPT Plus $20 (Codex) | Google AI Pro $19.99 or Claude Pro $20 | | $30+ | X Subscription Premium $30 | Copilot Pro+ $39, then $100–$200 tiers (Claude Max, ChatGPT Pro, Super/Ultra) | Google AI Ultra $99.99 |

Short version: $0 works fine for casual chat. $10 is the cheapest real step up for coding. $20 is where you get each lab's best models and full coding agents. Above $20, you're mostly buying higher limits, not new features.

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Budget: $0

Every major vendor has a free tier now. What you give up is mostly model quality and limits, not access.

General chat: ChatGPT Free. Unlimited GPT-6 text chats. You don't get the Plus models, and Codex only works in the desktop app with GPT-6 Luna. Claude Free includes web search, file creation, code execution, memory, connectors and Artifacts. It leaves out Claude Code, Opus and Research, and caps you at 5 Projects.
Coding: GitHub Copilot Free. 2,000 inline suggestions a month plus limited chat and agent use. Add Jules (Google's async coding agent), which is free for 15 tasks a day with 3 running at once. Windsurf Free (its pricing page now shows "Devin" plans) has unlimited Tab completions but only a light agent quota. The X Subscription Free gives limited Grok chat and a limited Cursor agent.
Research / writing: Gemini Free. Includes Deep Research and Gemini Live, but only on the Flash-Lite model. You also get 15 GB of storage.
What you give up: top models (no Opus, no Gemini 4 Argon, no GPT-6.1 Sol), agent coding on real repos, and predictable limits.

Students and teachers: eligible U.S. college students (18+) can get Google AI Pro free for one year (redeem by Dec 31, 2026; after that it renews at $19.99/mo unless you cancel). Verified teachers and maintainers of popular open-source projects can get Copilot Pro free. U.S. K–12 teachers can get ChatGPT for Teachers free through June 2027.

Budget: about $5–10

Coding: GitHub Copilot Pro, $10. The best value in this tier. Completions are unlimited and don't count against your credits. You can assign an issue to Copilot and it opens a pull request. Each month you get $15 in "GitHub AI Credits" ($10 base + $5 "flex" that GitHub says may change) for chat and agent work. *Watch out: the $15 is your credit allowance, not the price.*
General chat: Google AI Plus, $4.99 (Flash model, 2x Free limits, 400 GB storage, 200 Flow credits) or ChatGPT Go, $8 (more messages, uploads and images than Free; may include ads).
The X Subscription Plus, $8: one weekly usage pool shared between Grok and Cursor, plus Grok API access and X Premium features. It's Grok models only: third-party models in Cursor aren't included.
Mistral Pro for students, $5.99 (verified higher-ed students, up to 12 months, only if you haven't used Vibe/Le Chat before).
What you give up: flagship reasoning models, deep research at full limits, and (except on Copilot Pro) serious agent coding.

Budget: about $15–20 (the sweet spot)

Each lab's main paid plan costs about the same, so choose by what you do most.

Coding with an agent: Claude Pro ($20, or $17/mo billed annually) includes Claude Code and Opus. ChatGPT Plus ($20) includes Codex on web, CLI, IDE and iOS. OpenAI estimates 15–160 local GPT-6.1 Sol messages per 5 hours on Plus, depending on the task. Windsurf/Devin Pro ($20) adds frontier models and Devin Cloud agents. Mistral Pro ($14.99) advertises "all-day coding" with Vibe in the CLI, IDE or web.
Research / writing: Google AI Pro ($19.99) includes Gemini 4 Argon, 4x Free limits, higher Jules limits (100 tasks/day) and 5 TB of storage. Claude Pro adds Research. ChatGPT Plus includes deep research.
General chat: any of the three works. ChatGPT Plus is the most well-rounded. Pick Google AI Pro if you'd use the storage and Google app features anyway.
What you give up: headroom. All of these use rolling limits (see below), and heavy agent sessions can hit them quickly.
Perplexity Pro: Unverified. Perplexity's official pages blocked our automated check, so we list no price rather than guess.

Budget: $30 and above

Above $20, you're mainly paying for more usage, plus a few agent features.

$30: X Subscription Premium. 4x Plus usage, Cursor cloud agents and automations, Bugbot code reviews, Origin hosting, Grok Bot and video generation. Third-party models in Cursor are billed separately at API list price.
$39: Copilot Pro+. $70/month in AI Credits ($39 base + $31 flex).
~$100: Claude Max (from $100, 5x or 20x Pro usage, monthly billing only, includes $100–$200/mo in API credits). ChatGPT Pro (tiers at $100, $200 and $500; OpenAI says Pro currently has no 5-hour limit). Google AI Ultra ($99.99 for 5x AI Pro limits). Copilot Max ($100). X Subscription Super ($100, 15x Plus).
~$200: Google AI Ultra $199.99 (20x AI Pro), X Subscription Ultra $200 (50x Plus), Windsurf/Devin Max $200.
What you give up: money, mostly. Only go here if you hit the $20 limits every week.

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How the limits actually work (and why your quota disappears)

People keep reporting that Claude and Codex quotas run out much faster than they expected. The official pages explain why:

Rolling 5-hour windows plus weekly caps. Claude's usage resets on a rolling 5-hour window, with weekly limits on paid plans. Chat and Claude Code share the same pool. Gemini refreshes every 5 hours up to a weekly limit. ChatGPT Plus has 5-hour Codex limits and says weekly limits may apply.
Weekly pools. The X Subscription (Grok + Cursor) and Windsurf/Devin refresh weekly (Windsurf also daily), so one heavy day doesn't wipe out your month. It can still lock you out until the next refresh.
Credits, not messages. Copilot now uses dollar-valued AI Credits (1 credit = $0.01). Bigger models and longer agent runs use more of them.
Effort costs quota. Agent runs at maximum reasoning effort over a large codebase use far more of your allowance than a quick chat. That's why one prompt can eat a big share of a 5-hour window.
Top-ups. Claude (usage credits at API rates), ChatGPT/Codex (credits), Gemini (AI credits), Copilot (paid budget) and the X Subscription (top-ups) all let you keep going after the cap.

Subscription or pay-as-you-go API?

If your usage is spiky, the API can cost less: you pay only for the tokens you use. Codex can run on an API key, billed at API rates but without cloud features. Third-party models in Cursor are billed at API list price anyway. Use our LLM API cost calculator to estimate your monthly token bill before you pick a $100+ plan.

Which one should you pick?

"I just want a good chatbot": start free. Pay $20 for ChatGPT Plus only if you hit limits.
"I code a few hours a week": Copilot Pro, $10.
"I code daily with agents": Claude Pro or ChatGPT Plus at $20. Move to Max or Pro tiers only if you hit the weekly caps.
"I research and write": Google AI Pro $19.99 (free for one year if you're an eligible U.S. college student) or Claude Pro.
"I want Grok and Cursor together": X Subscription Premium at $30. Plus at $8 if Grok-only is fine.

Don't buy shared, resold or "group-buy" accounts. They break vendor terms, and vendors such as X Subscription Corp. say they don't authorize any resellers. Accounts bought that way can be suspended.

Sources (all checked October 24, 2026)

ChatGPT and Codex: https://developers.openai.com/codex/pricing, https://chatgpt.com/pricing
Claude: https://claude.com/pricing
Gemini / Google AI: https://gemini.google/subscriptions/ (US), https://gemini.google/students/
Jules: https://jules.google
GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot/plans, https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/manage-your-account/get-free-access-to-copilot-pro
The X Subscription (Grok + Cursor): https://x.ai/pricing, https://cursor.com/pricing
Windsurf / Devin: https://windsurf.com/pricing
Mistral: https://mistral.ai/pricing
Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/pro (blocked automated access, so Unverified)

Machine-readable data: ai-subscription-by-budget.json.

*Disclosure: we compiled this from official pricing pages only and did not test these tools hands-on. Prices change often, so check the vendor page before you buy. This page has no affiliate links, and no vendor paid to be included. Vendors appear by budget, not ranked by sponsorship.*