ChatGPT Business vs Claude Team: Complete Comparison and Report on Seat Prices, Premium Seat Limits, Model Access, and Admin Controls
ChatGPT Business is OpenAI's self-serve workspace plan for teams of 2 to 200 people, with two seat types since premium seats became available on August 25, 2026. Claude Team is Anthropic's equivalent for 2 to 150 people, restructured on January 28, 2026 when Anthropic lowered both seat prices and added an annual discount for premium seats. Both plans sit below their companies' sales-led Enterprise tiers, both promise no training on business data by default, and both now bundle a coding agent into every seat: Codex on the OpenAI side, Claude Code on the Anthropic side.
The two price lists are identical. A standard seat costs $20 per month billed annually or $25 billed monthly on both plans, a premium seat costs $100 per month billed annually or $125 billed monthly on both, and both companies add monthly API credits of $20 per standard seat and $100 per premium seat, pooled and capped at $500 per month. The differences sit inside the seats. A ChatGPT Business premium seat removes the five-hour usage limit entirely, while a Claude Team premium seat keeps a five-hour session limit set at 6.25 times the Pro allowance and adds Claude Fable models for up to 50% of weekly limits. A ChatGPT Business standard seat already includes OpenAI's top model, GPT-6 Astra, at 5 to 45 local messages per five hours, while a Claude Team standard seat pays for Fable through usage credits billed at API rates. Claude Team offers context windows of up to 1M tokens on Anthropic's newest models; ChatGPT Business lists 256K tokens for reasoning models in chat and 500,000 tokens for GPT-6.1 Sol in Codex and ChatGPT Work.
The practical split follows from those facts. ChatGPT Business is the better buy for teams whose heavy users hit session limits, for workspaces between 151 and 200 people, and for teams that want the vendor's flagship model on the cheapest seat. Claude Team is the better buy for teams that work with very long documents or codebases inside the chat window, and for teams where only a few power users need the top model, since premium seats bundle Fable while standard seats stay at $20. Prices and plan terms in this comparison were verified on the official OpenAI and Anthropic pages on November 14, 2026.
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CHATGPT BUSINESS AND CLAUDE TEAM: PLAN IDENTITY AND RECENT CHANGES.
ChatGPT Business is the plan OpenAI previously sold as ChatGPT Team. OpenAI's Business FAQ describes it as a self-serve workspace with centralized billing, admin controls and seat-based access to ChatGPT, Codex or both. Since April 2, 2026 a workspace can also hold Codex seats, a usage-billed seat type with no fixed monthly fee that draws on workspace credits. OpenAI announced premium seats on August 10, 2026 and made them generally available on August 25, 2026, describing them as offering five times the usage of a standard seat with no five-hour limit. The current pricing page adds a change that will reach every Business user next month: starting in December, plan usage becomes a single shared limit across ChatGPT and Codex.
Claude Team has carried standard and premium seats for longer. Anthropic's January 28, 2026 update cut the price of both seat types, introduced the $100 annual rate for premium seats and confirmed that Claude Code is included with every seat. The plan has since absorbed most of Anthropic's new apps: the Team column of the pricing page lists Claude Code, Claude Cowork, Claude Design, Claude Docs, Claude Slides, Claude Data, Claude Science, Claude for Microsoft 365 and Outlook, Claude in Chrome, enterprise search and research, with Claude Sheets, Claude Whiteboards and Claude Motion in beta. The most recent change concerns model access. Claude Fable 5.2, released on November 9, 2026, is available on all paid plans, and Anthropic's help center sets different rules for Team standard and premium seats.
Both plans are positioned as the step before Enterprise. ChatGPT Enterprise is sold through OpenAI's sales team with custom pricing, while Claude Enterprise lists a $20 per seat per month platform fee billed annually with a 20-seat minimum plus usage at API rates. Teams that outgrow the self-serve plans in seat count or compliance needs move to those tiers, which this comparison covers only where they explain what Business and Team leave out.
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CHATGPT BUSINESS VS CLAUDE TEAM SEAT PRICES AND BILLING RULES.
The seat prices match to the dollar, as do the monthly surcharges of $5 per standard seat and $25 per premium seat over annual billing. The billing mechanics differ in small ways. Anthropic's help center states that adding members or upgrading seats on Claude Team is billed immediately at a prorated amount, while removing a member produces no refund or credit, and the freed seat can be reassigned. OpenAI's Business FAQ gives the same treatment for unused standard seats, which are not refundable for the current billing period, with owners able to reduce the seat count for future invoices down to the two-seat minimum.
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Billing item | ChatGPT Business | Claude Team |
Standard seat, annual billing | $20 per user per month | $20 per seat per month |
Standard seat, monthly billing | $25 per user per month | $25 per seat per month |
Premium seat, annual billing | $100 per user per month | $100 per seat per month |
Premium seat, monthly billing | $125 per user per month | $125 per seat per month |
Seat range | 2 to 200 users | 2 to 150 seats |
Mixed seat types | Yes | Yes |
Usage-billed seat type | Codex seats, billed through workspace credits | None |
Payment method | Major credit card (invoicing for Enterprise) | Credit card only (ACH and invoicing for Enterprise) |
Removed seats | Not refundable for the current period | No refund, seat can be reassigned |
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Prices on both pages are US list prices before tax. Anthropic adds that pricing, currency and tax handling vary by region, and OpenAI's FAQ notes that nonprofits can receive up to a 75% discount on Business or Enterprise through OpenAI for Nonprofits. Anthropic offers discounted Team plans for nonprofits and scientists, which its API credits article confirms remain eligible for the monthly credit benefit.
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MONTHLY API CREDITS ON CHATGPT BUSINESS AND CLAUDE TEAM.
OpenAI and Anthropic now run the same credit formula for their team plans. OpenAI's developer documentation lists $20 in monthly API credits per paid Business standard seat and $100 per paid premium seat, pooled and capped at $500 per workspace per month. Anthropic's help center lists $20 per standard seat and $100 per premium seat on Claude Team, pooled into one monthly balance capped at $500, and gives a worked example of three standard and two premium seats producing $260 a month.
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API credit rule | ChatGPT Business | Claude Team |
Credit per standard seat | $20 per month | $20 per month |
Credit per premium seat | $100 per month | $100 per month |
Pooled cap | $500 per workspace per month | $500 per month |
Annual plans | Full year granted upfront, capped at $6,000 per annual cycle | Deposited monthly |
Eligibility | Paid subscription at least 7 days old, same email on ChatGPT and API accounts | Plan active for 7 days, claimant is Owner or Primary Owner with a Console role |
Rollover | No, unused credits expire at cycle end | No, unused credits expire at cycle end |
Where credits apply | OpenAI API organization | Claude Console (API), not usage inside Claude apps |
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The cap binds at the same seat counts on both plans: 25 standard seats or 5 premium seats already reach $500. A 40-person team therefore receives the same API value as a 25-person team. Anthropic states that monthly API credits do not pay for usage credits in Claude, Claude Code or Claude Cowork, so they cover developer API calls and not extra chat usage. OpenAI's pricing page adds that the benefit is subject to activation and eligibility and may change or be discontinued.
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STANDARD AND PREMIUM SEAT USAGE LIMITS ON BOTH PLANS.
Neither company publishes a fixed message quota for its team plan, and both describe premium seats as five times a standard seat. The units differ. OpenAI's Codex and Work pricing page gives estimated local-message ranges per five-hour period for a standard Business seat, identical to the Plus plan, and warns that the ranges are estimates and that weekly limits may also apply. Anthropic expresses Team limits as multiples of the Pro plan: a standard seat gets 1.25 times the Pro per-session allowance and a premium seat 6.25 times, each with a weekly limit across all models.
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Usage rule | ChatGPT Business | Claude Team |
Standard seat allowance | Same estimates as Plus per 5 hours | 1.25x Pro per session, plus weekly limit |
Premium seat allowance | 5x standard | 6.25x Pro per session (5x standard), plus weekly limit |
Five-hour limit on standard seats | Yes | Yes |
Five-hour limit on premium seats | No | Yes |
GPT-6.1 Sol, standard seat | 15-160 local messages per 5 hours | Not applicable |
GPT-6 Astra, standard seat | 5-45 local messages per 5 hours | Not applicable |
GPT-6 Luna, standard seat | 350-3,000 local messages per 5 hours | Not applicable |
Shared limit across apps | ChatGPT and Codex share one limit from December | Claude apps, Claude Code and Desktop share one limit |
After the limit | Workspace credits | Prepaid usage credits at API rates |
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The five-hour row is the sharpest practical difference between the two premium seats. A ChatGPT Business premium user who works through a long day is bounded only by weekly limits, while a Claude Team premium user still meets a session ceiling every five hours, even if that ceiling is five times higher than a standard seat. Anthropic removes the five-hour limit only for verified accounts on its individual Ultra plan.
Both plans let the organization buy past the limits. On Claude Team, Owners enable prepaid usage credits under Organization settings, with an organization-wide monthly spend limit and, where available, per-user limits; Anthropic states the credits are billed at standard API rates, expire 12 months after purchase and are non-refundable. On ChatGPT Business, OpenAI's pricing page says Business can purchase credits for more access, and the premium-seat announcement describes shared workspace credits managed by the workspace owner.
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MODELS INCLUDED IN CHATGPT BUSINESS AND CLAUDE TEAM SEATS.
ChatGPT Business includes OpenAI's full current lineup on every seat. The pricing page lists GPT-6.1 Sol, GPT-6 Astra, GPT-6 Sol, GPT-6 Luna, GPT-5.6 Sol, GPT-5.6 Sol Pro, GPT-5.6 Terra, GPT-5.6 Luna and GPT-5 Thinking Mini for Business, each marked flexible and identical to the Enterprise list, plus legacy models. OpenAI's Codex and Work documentation adds that GPT-6.1 Terra is available in Work and Codex on Business but not in chat, and that Ultrafast mode is not available on Business.
Claude Team includes Opus, Sonnet and Haiku on all seats, which today means Claude Opus 5.5, Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Claude Haiku 5.5. The Fable family is split by seat type. Anthropic's help center states that Team premium seats include Fable models with up to 50% of weekly limits, after which users can continue on usage credits, while Team standard seats have no Fable allowance and run Fable on pay-as-you-go usage credits from the start.
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Model access | ChatGPT Business standard | ChatGPT Business premium | Claude Team standard | Claude Team premium |
Vendor's top general model | GPT-6 Astra (5-45 msgs per 5 h) | GPT-6 Astra, 5x standard | Fable 5.2 on usage credits only | Fable 5.2 up to 50% of weekly limits |
Main flagship model | GPT-6.1 Sol | GPT-6.1 Sol | Opus 5.5 | Opus 5.5 |
Mid-tier model | GPT-6.1 Terra (Work and Codex only) | GPT-6.1 Terra (Work and Codex only) | Sonnet 5.5 | Sonnet 5.5 |
Small model | GPT-6 Luna | GPT-6 Luna | Haiku 5.5 | Haiku 5.5 |
Older versions | GPT-5.6 family, legacy models | GPT-5.6 family, legacy models | Fable 5.1 and 5 on credits | Fable 5.1 and 5 in allowance |
Always-on agents (dots) | No | Yes | Not listed | Not listed |
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A temporary offer narrows the Fable gap this week. Anthropic's Fable 5.2 launch page gives eligible Team standard seats all Fable models within plan limits, up to 50% of weekly usage, plus one Fable limit reset, from November 9 to November 16, 2026 at 11:59 pm PT. Eligible premium seats receive one to three Fable limit resets depending on subscription age, valid until March 8, 2027. Eligibility requires billing in place and seat holders added before November 9, 2026 at 10:00 am PT, so teams signing up now do not qualify.
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CONTEXT WINDOWS AND LONG-DOCUMENT WORK ON EACH PLAN.
Context is where the plans diverge most in published numbers. OpenAI's pricing page lists a 54K-token total context for GPT Instant on Business, about 40 pages of text, against 128K on Enterprise, and 256K tokens for GPT reasoning models, about 320 pages, on both tiers. OpenAI's models documentation states that GPT-6.1 Sol uses a default context window of 500,000 tokens in Codex and ChatGPT Work. The API version of GPT-6.1 Sol supports 1,050,000 tokens, but that figure applies to developer calls and not to the Business chat window.
Anthropic's pricing page lists a context window of up to 1M tokens on Team, varying by model, and its usage-limits article states that the newest models support up to 1M tokens on paid plans, with others at 500K or 200K. Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Fable 5.2 each carry a 1M-token window and 128K maximum output in Anthropic's model documentation. The Team plan help article still cites a 200k context window, so the two Anthropic pages do not agree.
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Context item | ChatGPT Business | Claude Team |
Fast chat model window | 54K tokens (GPT Instant) | Up to 1M tokens on newest models |
Reasoning model window in chat | 256K tokens | Up to 1M tokens on newest models |
Window in agent workspace | 500K tokens (GPT-6.1 Sol in Codex and Work) | Same limits across apps |
Conflicting official figure | None found | Team help article says 200K |
Long-chat handling | Usable input smaller than total window | Automatic context management summarizes earlier messages |
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Anthropic's automatic context management requires code execution to be enabled and consumes more of the usage limit in long conversations. OpenAI's pricing page notes that system instructions, memories and internal processing take part of the window, so the usable input is smaller than the totals shown. For a team that loads full contracts, research archives or large repositories into one conversation, Claude Team publishes roughly four times the reasoning window that ChatGPT Business shows for chat.
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CODEX, CLAUDE CODE AND AGENT FEATURES BY PLAN.
Both seats include a coding agent, and on both plans that agent draws from the same allowance as chat. On ChatGPT Business, Codex is included on standard and premium seats, and from December its usage will share one limit with ChatGPT. Business workspaces can also add usage-billed Codex seats for developers who need Codex without a full ChatGPT seat. OpenAI's Business release notes record Codex additions through June 2026, including Record and Replay on macOS, which turns a demonstrated workflow into a reusable skill outside the EU, UK and Switzerland.
On Claude Team, Claude Code is included with every seat and its usage counts toward the same limits as claude.ai and Claude Desktop. Claude Cowork, Anthropic's desktop agent for non-developers, is also included on Team, as are organization-wide skills deployment and org instructions on the admin side.
ChatGPT Business has a feature with no Claude Team counterpart in the plan tables: dots, OpenAI's always-on agents, are listed for Business premium seats only. Claude Team has one with no Business counterpart: enterprise search, a dedicated search project auto-provisioned for every member that searches Slack, Microsoft 365 and custom connectors.
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APPS, CONNECTORS AND OFFICE INTEGRATIONS ON BUSINESS AND TEAM.
The connector lists overlap heavily. OpenAI lists connections to Google Workspace, Slack, GitHub and Microsoft 365 for Business, plus extensions for Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Google Sheets and a developer mode in beta. Anthropic lists connectors for Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, GitHub, Microsoft 365 and Slack on Team, plus Claude for Microsoft 365, Claude for Microsoft Outlook and Claude in Chrome.
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Feature | ChatGPT Business | Claude Team |
Coding agent | Codex (shared limit from December) | Claude Code on every seat |
Desktop agent for office work | ChatGPT Work with built-in browser | Claude Cowork, Claude in Chrome |
Office add-ins | Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Google Sheets extensions | Claude for Microsoft 365 and Outlook |
Connectors | Google Workspace, Slack, GitHub, Microsoft 365 | Google Drive, Gmail, Calendar, GitHub, Microsoft 365, Slack |
Workspace search | Search and deep research | Enterprise search project for all members |
Document and slide apps | Sites, interactive tables and charts | Claude Docs, Slides, Data, Design; Sheets and Whiteboards in beta |
Memory | Expanded; past-chat memory coming soon | Included |
Voice | Expanded, with video | Voice mode |
Scheduled work | Scheduled tasks | Not listed in Team table |
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OpenAI's FAQ adds two workspace rules that matter at sign-up. A user joining a Business workspace can merge a personal workspace into it, which deletes the personal workspace permanently, and data export is not available in a Business workspace. Members' private chats are not visible to owners or admins by default on Business.
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ADMIN CONTROLS, SECURITY AND DATA RETENTION ON BUSINESS AND TEAM.
Neither plan includes the controls that large security teams usually require. OpenAI's pricing table lists SAML SSO, SSO with MFA, admin roles, bulk member management, domain verification, SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, usage analytics and spend controls for Business, and lists SCIM, Enterprise Key Management, role-based access controls, the Compliance API logs platform, IP allowlisting, data residency and ISO 27001-family certifications as Enterprise-only. Anthropic's pricing page lists SSO, domain verification, restricted org creation, connector admin controls, desktop enterprise deployment, usage analytics and spend controls for Team, and lists SCIM, audit logs, the Compliance API, role-based access, domain capture, custom data retention and the HIPAA-ready offering as Enterprise-only.
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Control | ChatGPT Business | Claude Team |
SAML SSO | Yes, with MFA | Yes |
SCIM provisioning | No (Enterprise) | No (Enterprise); help article lists JIT provisioning |
Audit or compliance logs | No (Enterprise) | No (Enterprise) |
Role-based access | Admin roles; RBAC is Enterprise | Pricing page says Enterprise; help article lists role-based permissioning |
Domain controls | Domain verification | Domain verification, restricted org creation |
Spend controls | Usage analytics and spend controls | Org spend caps, per-user caps where available |
Training on business data | No, by default | No, by default |
Deleted chats | Generally deleted within 30 days | Deleted from back end within 30 days |
Custom retention | Enterprise only | Enterprise only |
Encryption | AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.2 in transit | Not detailed on plan pages |
Data residency | Enterprise (ten regions) | Not listed for Team |
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The Anthropic help article for Team lists domain capture and role-based permissioning among its admin controls, while the pricing page marks both as Enterprise features, another point where Anthropic's own pages disagree. Anthropic's privacy center keeps safety-flagged inputs and outputs for up to 2 years and feedback data for 5 years on its commercial products. OpenAI's ChatGPT Work security page states that deleted chats are generally scheduled for permanent deletion within 30 days and that Enterprise Key Management and the Compliance Logs Platform apply to eligible Enterprise and Edu workspaces only.
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WHAT A TEAM PAYS ON CHATGPT BUSINESS AND CLAUDE TEAM: FIVE SEAT MIXES.
Because the price grids and credit formulas match, a given seat mix costs the same on both plans. The table below applies the list prices to five team shapes, computed in Python; the credit column assumes the owner claims the API credit benefit and the team has API work to spend it on.
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Seat mix | Monthly billing, per month | Annual billing, per month | Annual total | API credits per month | Saving from annual billing |
5 standard | $125 | $100 | $1,200 | $100 | $300 a year |
10 standard | $250 | $200 | $2,400 | $200 | $600 a year |
8 standard + 2 premium | $450 | $360 | $4,320 | $360 | $1,080 a year |
25 standard + 5 premium | $1,250 | $1,000 | $12,000 | $500 (cap) | $3,000 a year |
40 standard + 10 premium | $2,250 | $1,800 | $21,600 | $500 (cap) | $5,400 a year |
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Up to the $500 cap, the API credits equal the annual seat price exactly, so a small team that already spends that much on OpenAI or Anthropic API calls recovers its subscription cost in API value. Past the cap, the credits stop growing: on the 50-seat mix the credits cover $500 of an $1,800 monthly bill. Upgrading one seat from standard to premium costs an extra $80 per month on annual billing, or $960 a year, on both plans.
The decision between the plans therefore rests on what the $100 premium seat buys on each. On ChatGPT Business it buys the removal of the five-hour limit and access to dots. On Claude Team it buys a 6.25x Pro session allowance and Fable inside the plan limits.
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OVERAGE COSTS WHEN SEAT LIMITS RUN OUT ON BUSINESS AND TEAM.
Anthropic bills Team usage credits at standard API rates, so overage on Claude Team can be priced from the model pages: Sonnet 5.5 at $2 input and $10 output per 1M tokens, Opus 5.5 at $4 and $20, Fable 5.2 at $8 and $40. OpenAI prices Business overage in credits; its Codex and Work pricing page lists GPT-6.1 Sol at 50 credits per 1M input tokens and 250 per 1M output tokens, GPT-6.1 Terra at 25 and 125, and GPT-6 Astra at 250 and 1,250. OpenAI's credit rate card page could not be loaded on November 14, 2026; the dollar figures below use the only official conversion found, OpenAI's premium-seat announcement, which equated $100 with 2,500 credits ($0.04 per credit).
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Task, no cache discounts | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Claude Opus 5.5 | Claude Fable 5.2 | GPT-6.1 Terra | GPT-6.1 Sol | GPT-6 Astra |
Long-document review: 200K input, 20K output | $0.60 | $1.20 | $2.40 | $0.30 | $0.60 | $3.00 |
Coding-agent session: 1.5M input, 60K output | $3.60 | $7.20 | $14.40 | $1.80 | $3.60 | $18.00 |
Short chat turn: 8K input, 1.5K output | $0.03 | $0.06 | $0.12 | $0.02 | $0.03 | $0.16 |
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The table answers a specific Claude Team question. A standard-seat user who needs Fable 5.2 for long-document reviews of this size pays $2.40 per review in usage credits, so the $80 monthly premium upgrade on annual billing equals about 33 such reviews a month. Users who need Fable more often than that are cheaper on a premium seat, with the caveat that premium seats cap Fable at half the weekly limit. On ChatGPT Business no such calculation is needed for the top model, because GPT-6 Astra is already in the standard seat allowance.
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WHAT OPENAI AND ANTHROPIC DO NOT PUBLISH FOR THESE PLANS.
Several figures a buyer would want are missing from both companies' pages. Neither publishes weekly limits in absolute terms. OpenAI gives message ranges only for standard seats and describes premium seats only as five times that; it has not published how the December shared limit across ChatGPT and Codex will be sized for Business. Anthropic gives Team allowances only as multiples of the Pro plan, whose own allowance is not published in messages or tokens.
On ChatGPT Business, the credit rate card and the Business models-and-limits help article returned errors when fetched on November 14, 2026, and the pricing page omits deep research, agent and image-generation quotas, marking them only as included. On Claude Team, the context window appears as 1M tokens on the pricing page and 200k in the Team help article, and role-based permissioning and domain capture appear as Team features in one place and Enterprise features in another. Neither company publishes independent evaluations of the plans themselves, so the comparison above rests on plan terms and list prices rather than measured throughput.
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CHATGPT BUSINESS OR CLAUDE TEAM: THE CHOICE BY TEAM AND WORKLOAD.
With prices and API credits identical, the choice follows from limits, models and context. For a deeper look at each vendor's full plan range, our guide to ChatGPT pricing for Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise and our guide to Claude pricing and plan limits cover the individual tiers, and the ChatGPT Pro vs Business comparison covers the case of a single heavy user choosing between a personal and a team seat.
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Team or workload | Better fit | Reason |
Power users who work all day without breaks | ChatGPT Business premium | No five-hour limit; Claude Team premium keeps one |
Top model on the cheapest seat | ChatGPT Business standard | GPT-6 Astra included at 5-45 messages per 5 hours |
A few users need the top model, the rest do not | Claude Team mixed seats | Fable bundled only on $100 premium seats |
Contracts, archives or repositories in one chat | Claude Team | Up to 1M tokens vs 256K for reasoning chat on Business |
Developers on a coding agent | Either | Codex and Claude Code both included on every seat |
Workspace of 151 to 200 people | ChatGPT Business | Claude Team stops at 150 seats |
Always-on background agents | ChatGPT Business premium | Dots limited to Business premium seats |
Search across Slack and Microsoft 365 for all members | Claude Team | Enterprise search project auto-provisioned |
SCIM, audit logs or data residency required | Neither | Both reserve these for Enterprise |
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A team that buys on price alone has no reason to prefer either plan, since every seat mix costs the same and earns the same API credits. The deciding question is how its heaviest users work. A ChatGPT Business premium seat is the only one of the four seat types with no five-hour ceiling, and ChatGPT Business is the plan that puts the vendor's top model on a $20 seat. Claude Team is the plan with the larger published context window and the cheaper route to a top model for a small group, because Fable 5.2 rides on premium seats while the rest of the team stays on standard seats with Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Claude Code.
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