Microsoft Copilot vs ChatGPT Plus: Price in the US

Short answer. In the United States, Microsoft 365 Personal, which includes Copilot, cost $9.99 a month and Microsoft 365 Premium $19.99 on October 17, 2026. ChatGPT Plus cost $20 a month on October 19, 2026. Paid yearly, Premium was $199.99. Neither page says whether tax is included.

In plain words. Microsoft sells Copilot inside Microsoft 365 plans, which also include Office apps such as Word and Excel. ChatGPT Plus is OpenAI’s paid plan. Premium and Plus cost almost the same: one cent apart, as printed. Microsoft also sells yearly plans. Neither page says whether tax is added at checkout.

Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT are two AI assistants, from Microsoft and from OpenAI. They are not sold in the same shape. On Microsoft’s US store, Copilot is not a plan of its own: it comes inside Microsoft 365 Personal, Family and Premium. On October 17, 2026, the US store page for Copilot Pro redirected to Microsoft 365 Premium, and Copilot Pro was not sold there as a separate plan. OpenAI sells ChatGPT as its own set of plans: Free, Go, Plus and Pro for one person, and Business priced per seat.

Both readings were made by a script and both show US dollars. Microsoft’s figures come from its Microsoft 365 plan comparison page on the US store, read on October 17, 2026. OpenAI’s figures come from its Codex pricing page, read on October 19, 2026. ChatGPT’s own plans page refuses scripted clients, while the Codex page lists the same ChatGPT plans, because each of them includes Codex. A separate reading of ChatGPT made by hand from Spain, in euros, is on the ChatGPT plan page and is not used here.

Every plan for one person, in US dollars

No Microsoft plan costs exactly the same as a ChatGPT plan, so each row holds one plan, in order of monthly price. Each cell quotes the price line as the page prints it.

Three plans sit outside the table. OpenAI’s page also lists a Free plan at “$0 /month”. Microsoft 365 Family, at $12.99 a month or $129.99 a year, is sold “For 1 to 6 people (AI for subscription owner only)”, so it is not a plan for one person. ChatGPT Business is priced per seat, “$20 / user / month*”, with the footnote “*2+ users, billed annually. $25 per user per month when billed monthly.”

ChatGPT Pro has more than one level. The page prints “From $100 /month” and adds “Plans at $100, $200, or $500 USD per month”. Only the starting price is in the table.

What the two pages say about tax

Nothing. Microsoft’s comparison page does not say whether its prices include sales tax, and neither does OpenAI’s Codex page. The comparison above is therefore of the prices as printed. As printed, Microsoft 365 Premium is $19.99 a month and ChatGPT Plus $20, one cent apart, and Microsoft 365 Personal is $9.99 against $8 for ChatGPT Go. Whether the same order holds before tax cannot be read from either page, since each might add tax at checkout or might already include it. No tax is added or taken out anywhere in this post.

Paying yearly

Microsoft prints a yearly price next to each monthly one and a banner that reads “Save up to 17% when you pay yearly for Microsoft 365”. The sums can be checked with the printed figures. Twelve months of Personal at $9.99 come to 12 × $9.99 = $119.88, against $99.99 for the yearly plan. Twelve months of Premium at $19.99 come to 12 × $19.99 = $239.88, against $199.99. Divided by 12, the yearly plans work out to $99.99 ÷ 12 = $8.33 and $199.99 ÷ 12 = $16.67 a month. The yearly total is what is charged. The page also states: “Subscription automatically renews at the regular price and selected term, unless cancelled in Microsoft account.”

OpenAI’s Codex page prints one monthly price for Go, Plus and Pro. The only yearly billing it mentions is the Business footnote quoted above, so ChatGPT Plus has no yearly price to set beside Premium’s $199.99.

What each plan includes, in the pages’ words

Microsoft’s lines carry footnote marks, printed as small numbers such as “1” after the word Copilot or at the end of a line, and “3” after Excel. They are kept in the quotes exactly as printed.

Microsoft 365 Personal. “For 1 person” and “1 TB of secure cloud storage”. For Office, the card lists “Word, Excel, 3 PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote desktop apps with Microsoft Copilot 1”. For Copilot, the card lists “Advanced Copilot 1 chat with higher usage than free” and “Higher usage than free for AI image creation in Copilot 1”.

Microsoft 365 Premium. The card opens with “Everything in Microsoft 365 Family, plus:”. Where Personal says “higher usage than free”, the Premium card says “extensive usage”: “Advanced Copilot 1 chat with extensive usage” and “Extensive usage for AI image creation in Copilot 1”. It also lists “Extensive usage for visual AI assistance from your screen or camera 1” and “Agentic AI features that get things done for you, including advanced research and analytics 1”.

Microsoft 365 Family. The card opens with “Everything in Microsoft 365 Personal, plus:”, then “For 1 to 6 people (AI for subscription owner only)” and “2 TB of shared, secure cloud storage”.

ChatGPT Go. “Use Codex for lightweight coding tasks.” and “GPT-6 Luna at Standard speed in the desktop app, subject to rollout”.

ChatGPT Plus. “Codex on the web, in the CLI, in the IDE extension, and on iOS”, “Cloud-based integrations like automatic code review and Slack integration” and “GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Luna”. The plan can grow past its allowance: “Flexibly extend usage with ChatGPT credits”.

ChatGPT Pro. “Choose the Pro plan that fits your usage.” The top level adds “Ultrafast mode access on Pro $500”.

One usage note from OpenAI’s page applies across plans: “Voice in Desktop uses your existing Codex usage budget at $0.05 per minute.” Codex, OpenAI’s coding agent, has its own Codex page, and its plans are set beside Anthropic’s in Claude Code vs OpenAI Codex.

Who each page sells each plan to

The two pages speak to different readers. Microsoft’s comparison page sorts its plans by how many people use them: Personal is “For 1 person”, Family “For 1 to 6 people (AI for subscription owner only)”. In Family, the Copilot features go to the person who holds the subscription, not to each member.

OpenAI’s Codex page is written for people who code, and it describes each ChatGPT plan by how much coding it covers. Free: “Explore Codex capabilities on quick coding tasks.” Go: “Use Codex for lightweight coding tasks.” Plus: “Power a few focused coding sessions each week.” Business: “Bring Codex into your startup or growing business.” These lines describe the plans from Codex’s side. They are what the page read by the script prints, not ChatGPT’s own plan descriptions.

Plan pages and other comparisons

Every plan of both products, with its quote and date, is on the Microsoft Copilot subscription page and the ChatGPT subscription page. Other plan-by-plan comparisons: ChatGPT Plus vs Claude Pro, Perplexity Pro vs ChatGPT Plus, Google AI Pro vs ChatGPT Plus in Spain, Grok vs ChatGPT in Spain and Google AI Pro vs Claude Pro. Every app covered is listed in AI subscriptions.

How we checked

Both pages were read by a script, with no browser: Microsoft’s Microsoft 365 plan comparison page on the US store on October 17, 2026, and OpenAI’s Codex pricing page at learn.chatgpt.com/docs/pricing on October 19, 2026. Each page’s text is saved as a snapshot, and a test checks every price and every quote above against those snapshots. Before this post was written, on October 21, 2026, both pages were read again by the same script, and every price and quote was still on them. US dollars are never converted to another currency, and no tax is added or taken out, because neither page states it. Nothing here says which plan is better: the pages describe different products.

Frequently asked questions

Is Copilot included in Microsoft 365 Personal?

Yes: Microsoft's US plan comparison page lists 'Advanced Copilot 1 chat with higher usage than free' and 'Higher usage than free for AI image creation in Copilot 1' under Microsoft 365 Personal, at $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year, as read on October 17, 2026.

Is Microsoft 365 Premium cheaper than ChatGPT Plus?

As printed, by one cent: Microsoft 365 Premium is $19.99 a month (read October 17, 2026) and ChatGPT Plus $20 a month (read October 19, 2026), and neither page says whether tax is included, so the order before tax is not settled. Paid yearly, Premium is $199.99 a year, which is $16.67 a month divided by 12.

Does Microsoft 365 include Word and Excel?

Yes: Microsoft's US plan comparison page lists 'Word, Excel, 3 PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote desktop apps with Microsoft Copilot 1' under Microsoft 365 Personal, at $9.99 a month, as read on October 17, 2026. Family starts with 'Everything in Microsoft 365 Personal, plus:' and Premium with 'Everything in Microsoft 365 Family, plus:'.

Does Microsoft 365 Family give Copilot to every member?

No: Microsoft's page describes Family, at $12.99 a month or $129.99 a year, as 'For 1 to 6 people (AI for subscription owner only)', as read on October 17, 2026.