Free, $20/mo, or pay-per-use — the answer depends on what you do with AI, not on the hype. Take the 60-second quiz, compare real prices side by side, and pick exactly one plan instead of stacking three.
If you use AI under 30 minutes a day, stay on free tiers — ChatGPT Free, DeepSeek, and 豆包 Doubao cover most casual needs, and 文心 and Muse have generous free tiers too. The $20/mo tier (ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, Perplexity Pro) is the sweet spot for regular daily users who actually hit free-tier limits. Professional coders with bursty use often save by switching to pay-per-use API instead of stacked subscriptions — DeepSeek's API runs around ¥6/1M output tokens. And never stack two or three $20 plans without auditing first: one flagship almost always beats three mid-tiers. Evidence: two V2EX threads on 2026-10-09 ('which AI membership do you use?' — 55 replies; 'AI is getting unaffordable' — 38 replies) show real users asking this exact question.
Last updated: October 9, 2026 · Prices change often — re-check the official pricing page before paying.Question 1 of 3
What do you mainly use AI for?
What's your monthly budget?
How intense is your usage?
Static reference — every price below is copied exactly from our verified comparison data. Prices change often; re-check before paying.
| Product | Free tier | Entry paid tier + price | Flagship tier + price | Best for | Watch out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT (OpenAI) | $0 | Go — $8/mo | Pro — $200/mo (20x) | Daily assistant · Coding (Codex) | Pro tiers get expensive fast |
| Claude (Anthropic) | $0 | Pro — $20/mo ($17/mo annual) | Max 20x — $200/mo | Writing · Coding (Claude Code) | Strict usage limits; power users hit rate limits |
| Google AI | Free | AI Plus — $4.99/mo | AI Ultra — $199.99/mo | Daily assistant · Search (Workspace users) | Flagship reasoning historically trails on hard tasks |
| Grok (xAI) | Free | SuperGrok Lite — $10/mo | SuperGrok Heavy — $300/mo | Search (real-time X data) | Weaker coding/tooling ecosystem; X Premium $8/mo also includes Grok |
| Microsoft Copilot Pro | — | Copilot Pro — $20/mo | Copilot Pro — $20/mo (effective ~$30/mo with M365) | Office automation | Requires Microsoft 365 (~$10/mo) separately — real cost is higher |
| Perplexity | Free tier | Pro — $20/mo ($17/mo annual) | Max — $200/mo | Search | Weak at long creative writing and coding |
| Muse (Meta) | Free (100M tokens/week) | Power — $20/mo (500M/week) | Maximum — $100/mo (3B/week) | Daily assistant | New product (2026-09-08) — agent/tool ecosystem still thin |
| 豆包 Doubao (ByteDance) | Free tier | 标准 — ¥68/mo (¥688/yr) | 专业 — ¥500/mo (¥5088/yr) | Daily assistant · Writing (中文) | Weaker on hard STEM/coding benchmarks |
| DeepSeek | Free (no consumer membership as of Oct 2026) | API pay-per-use | — | Coding · Technical writing | Crowded free servers, peak-time slowdowns |
| Kimi (Moonshot AI) | Free Adagio tier | Andante — ¥49/mo | Allegro — ¥699/mo | Long documents · Office | New C-end signups suspended Jul 2026 (reopening unverified) |
Our rule for this whole site: teach people to save money, and prove each tip doesn't degrade results.
Track your real usage for 2 weeks before paying anything. If the free tier never blocks you, free wins — the cheapest plan is the one you don't buy.
Plus + Pro + SuperGrok at $20/mo each is $720/yr for capacity you almost certainly don't use. One flagship almost always beats three mid-tiers. Audit what you actually hit each quarter.
Claude Pro drops $20→$17/mo and Perplexity Pro $20→$17/mo on annual billing — a free $36/yr per plan. Only commit after a month on monthly, so you're sure you won't churn.
Pay-per-use is often 90%+ cheaper for light or bursty use: DeepSeek API runs ~¥6/1M output tokens (V4-Pro), Zhipu GLM API starts ~¥0.008/1K tokens. Subscriptions only win for steady daily volume.
Run your own math in our AI Subscription Calculator.
Pricing and free tiers shift fast (see the table dates). Set a calendar reminder every 3 months: cancel whatever you don't actually hit.
For casual use, yes. Free tiers now cover most daily chat and Q&A: ChatGPT Free ($0), DeepSeek (no consumer membership as of Oct 2026), 豆包 Doubao (free tier), 文心 (fully free since 2025-04-01), and Muse (free, 100M tokens/week). You only need to pay if you consistently hit free-tier limits — track your real usage for 2 weeks before paying, and if the free tier never blocks you, the cheapest plan is free.
For professional daily coding, Claude Pro at $20/mo ($17/mo annual, includes Claude Code) is the consensus pick for real codebases, and ChatGPT Plus at $20/mo includes Codex. Heavy pros step up to Claude Max 5x at $100/mo. But if your coding is bursty or light, pay-per-use API (DeepSeek API, e.g. V4-Pro output ~¥6/1M tokens) is often 90%+ cheaper than a subscription. In China, Zhipu's GLM Coding Plan starts at ¥118/mo (Lite).
It's worth it only if free limits actually block you. The $20 tier (ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, Perplexity Pro) is the sweet spot for regular daily users (1–2 hours/day) who keep hitting free walls. For light use (under 30 min/day), $20/mo is usually the worst value — you're paying for capacity you never touch. Annual billing drops some $20 plans to $17/mo (Claude Pro, Perplexity Pro), but only commit if you know you'll stay.
No — this is the #1 overpayment trap. Never stack two or three $20/mo plans without auditing: one flagship almost always beats stacked mid-tiers. Pick one primary plan for your main use case, lean on free tiers (DeepSeek, 豆包 Doubao, ChatGPT Free) for everything else, and re-audit every quarter. If you're paying $40+/mo across services, you can almost certainly cut it in half without losing anything.
Steady daily use favors the flat subscription ($20/mo). Bursty or light use favors pay-per-use: DeepSeek's API is priced around ¥6/1M output tokens (V4-Pro), and Zhipu's GLM API starts from ~¥0.008/1K tokens — often 90%+ cheaper than a subscription you barely touch. Use the AI Subscription Calculator on our homepage to run your own numbers.
Overlapping AI subscriptions cost most people $100–$300 a year they never notice. Run the free calculator to see your number.
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