Five people, four AI plans: what do those seat prices really buy?

Open four pricing pages and the choice seems easy: multiply each seat price by five and pick the smallest total. The trouble is that the four totals don't buy the same kind of thing.

ChatGPT Business and Claude Team are standalone AI workspaces. Google Workspace Business Standard is a wider office suite with Gemini included. Microsoft 365 Copilot Business is an add-on that needs a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan, unless the company buys a bundle. The cheapest-looking row can change as soon as you include what the team already owns and what one heavy user actually needs.

Consider a five-person company with an owner, an operations lead, two operations specialists and a salesperson. Everyone writes and summarizes. One operations specialist also spends hours on long documents and repeated research. The company wants shared billing and sensible admin controls, but it doesn't yet know whether all five people will use AI equally.

For that team, the useful question isn't “Which seat is cheapest?” It's “What are we actually committing to for a normal month?”

What five seats cost on paper

These are public US list prices checked on August 25, 2026. The arithmetic excludes taxes, temporary promotions and regional differences.

| Option | Visible five-person price | What that price buys | What it leaves out | | --- | ---: | --- | --- | | ChatGPT Business | $100 per month equivalent with annual billing; $125 with monthly billing | Five Business seats in a dedicated workspace | Optional usage extensions can add a separate credit budget | | Claude Team Standard | $100 per month equivalent with annual billing; $125 with monthly billing | Five Standard Team seats | One heavy user may be better suited to a Premium seat | | Google Workspace Business Standard | $70 per month with an annual commitment | Five licenses for the wider Workspace suite, including Gemini features and pooled storage | It is not an AI-only purchase, so the value depends on the office suite already in use | | Microsoft 365 Copilot Business | $105 per month equivalent with annual billing, plus a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan | Five Copilot add-on licenses | The required base licenses are not included in that $105 |

OpenAI's pricing page lists ChatGPT Business at $20 per user per month with annual billing or $25 with monthly billing, for two or more users.

Claude's pricing page lists the same annual and monthly prices for a Standard Team seat. A Premium Team seat is $100 per month with annual billing or $125 with monthly billing. Anthropic says Team supports two to 150 members and lets a company mix Standard and Premium seats.

Google Workspace pricing lists Business Standard at $14 per user per month with an annual commitment. The plan includes Gmail, collaboration tools, 2 TB of pooled storage per user and Gemini features across Workspace. Calling its $70 five-person total an AI price would leave most of the package out of the description.

Microsoft's Copilot pricing page lists Microsoft 365 Copilot Business at $21 per user per month with annual billing and says a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan is required. The same page lists a Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Copilot Business bundle at $23.50 per user per month with annual billing, or $117.50 for five people.

Four questions that make the prices comparable

The goal isn't to build a giant feature matrix. These four questions reveal why the advertised totals are not directly comparable.

Who will actually use a paid seat?

Five employees don't necessarily mean five equally active users. In this company, the owner and operations team may work in the tool every day while the salesperson only reads the finished account brief.

The honest seat count comes from recurring work, not the headcount in a slide deck. If all five people need their own workspace access each week, price five seats. If one person only receives the result, check whether that role really belongs in the paid pilot. A shared login isn't a sensible workaround for business work; the question is whether the role needs direct access at all.

What will the heavy user cost?

The average user rarely decides the budget. The outlier does.

Four people in this example may be comfortable on a standard tier while the research-heavy operations specialist reaches limits first. Claude makes that possibility visible in its pricing. Four Standard seats plus one Premium seat would be $180 per month equivalent with annual billing: four times $20, plus $100. That is a long way from the $100 all-Standard total, but it may fit the team better than upgrading everybody.

OpenAI says ChatGPT Business usage can be extended with credits. Those credits are not included in the $100 or $125 seat total above. They belong in a separate usage budget after the team has shortlisted the product; guessing them here would make the cross-vendor comparison look more precise than it is.

For any plan, find out what a user sees at the limit. Does work stop, move to a lower level of access, require a higher tier or become metered? A prominent “unlimited” label doesn't make every model, tool and task identical.

Are you buying AI, or changing the office suite?

ChatGPT Business and Claude Team can sit beside the tools a company already uses. Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 Copilot are tied much more closely to their wider productivity suites.

For a company already on Google Workspace, the $70 Business Standard total may be an existing office-suite cost rather than a new AI bill. The useful comparison is what Gemini can do inside that environment versus the extra cost and inconvenience of adding another workspace.

For a company already using Microsoft 365, the $21 Copilot price is only the add-on. The qualifying Microsoft 365 licenses still matter. A company that needs both can compare the $117.50 five-person Business Standard bundle with the cost of its current Microsoft setup plus the Copilot add-on.

Admin needs also differ. OpenAI lists a dedicated workspace, SAML SSO and MFA for Business. Anthropic lists central billing and administration, SSO and connector controls for Team. Those features matter when somebody will actually set them up and review them; they shouldn't win the comparison just because they make a longer checklist.

How long are you signing up for?

Annual billing lowers several of the prices above. It also turns a small trial into a longer commitment. Put the monthly option beside the annual equivalent before letting the cheaper column decide.

Then think about what would have to move if the company left: connected documents, shared prompt libraries, recurring tasks, staff habits and admin settings. This article doesn't claim that one vendor makes that move easier than another; the sources here are pricing pages, not a hands-on migration test. The point is simply to include the cost of changing course in the conversation.

What the shortlist might look like

For this five-person company, all four options can make sense for different reasons:

• ChatGPT Business fits a team that wants a standalone workspace and is prepared to budget optional usage credits separately.
• Claude Team deserves a look when four standard users and one heavier user reflect the real team better than five identical seats.
• Google Workspace Business Standard is most relevant when the company is also choosing—or already pays for—its email, storage and collaboration suite.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot Business is easiest to understand beside the company's qualifying Microsoft 365 licenses or the $117.50 five-person Business Standard bundle.

A short trial can use the same two real tasks in every shortlisted product. The useful result isn't a sweeping winner. It is knowing whether the five roles finish the work, who reaches a limit first and which admin or office-suite dependency becomes important.

The cheapest seat may still be the right choice. Once the numbers describe the same five people and the same work, at least it wins a fair comparison rather than a contest between four unrelated price labels.