ChatGPT Work vs Claude: Two $20 AI Assistants Want Your Busywork
Both cost $20 a month and promise to write your reports for you.
For years, AI chatbots answered questions and then stopped. Now OpenAI and Anthropic are racing to build assistants that actually do the work. OpenAI launched ChatGPT Work on July 9 as a tool for longer projects, and on Sept. 16 Anthropic merged its separate long-task tool, Cowork, directly into normal Claude. Both companies want the same job: the research, reports, and follow-ups currently eating your afternoon.
The two tools overlap a lot but split on style. ChatGPT Work leans into automation — you can ask it to do something once, on a repeating schedule, or whenever a certain event happens, and it will plug into more than 1,400 outside apps including Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and GitHub. It can produce spreadsheets, presentations, reports, and simple websites. Claude's pitch is smoother switching: one assistant decides on its own whether your request needs a quick answer or a long, multi-step project. Anthropic also added Claude Docs, Slides, and Design, so you can edit and share documents without leaving. Those creation tools are still in beta (an early, possibly buggy test version) on paid plans.
Pricing is a tie, which is unusual. One person pays $20 a month for either ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro. A standard team seat costs $25 a month, or $20 if billed yearly, on both. A premium team seat runs $125 monthly, or $100 yearly, on both. Since neither is undercutting the other, the real fight is over which one fits how you already work.
So what should you do? If your job involves pulling information from many different apps and churning out regular reports, ChatGPT Work's wider app list and scheduling may save you more time. If you mostly want one assistant that quietly handles both small questions and big projects, Claude's unified setup may feel less cluttered. Either way, remember you are handing over real tasks — both let you approve important actions, and you should use that. Try one for a week on your own work before trusting it with anything that matters.
- Both assistants cost $20 a month for one person and $25 per teammate, so price alone won't help you choose.
- ChatGPT Work connects to over 1,400 outside apps like Slack and Google Workspace; Claude offers similar connectors plus new built-in Docs and Slides.
- Both can now write reports, build spreadsheets and slide decks, and run tasks on a schedule while you do something else.
Why It Matters
If you lose hours weekly to research and reports, $20 a month could hand that work to an AI.