● Best for live information Grok. Real-time X and web search is on the free tier, not paywalled.
● Cheapest real upgrade ChatGPT Go, $8/month, 10x the free tier on messages, uploads and image creation.
● Best for long documents Gemini. Google AI Pro states a one-million-token context window and 5TB of storage.
Short answer: pick by the job, not the brand. The table below is the whole argument.
On the missing prices: Google renders its Google AI Plus and AI Pro monthly prices at checkout in local currency and does not print them on its plan comparison page. xAI publishes only the SuperGrok price on its public plan grid. Those cells below say "not published" instead of carrying a number copied from an affiliate roundup.
| Grok | ChatGPT | Gemini |
|---|
| Free tier | $0 - real-time web and X search, voice mode, connectors | $0 - ads planned in the US | $0 - included with a Google account |
| Entry paid tier | SuperGrok $30/mo | Go $8/mo (US) | Google AI Plus - price not published |
| Mid paid tier | SuperGrok Plus - price not published | Plus $20/mo | Google AI Pro - price not published |
| Top consumer tier | SuperGrok Heavy - price not published | Pro - price not published | AI Ultra $100/mo (5x) or $200/mo (20x) |
| Flagship model | grok-4.7, 500k context | GPT-5.2 Thinking (Plus) | Gemini 4 Argon, Gemini 3.1 Pro |
| Image generation | Grok Imagine Image 2.0, from $0.02/image via API | Included, 10x free tier on Go | Nano Banana 2 and Nano Banana Pro |
| Video generation | Grok Imagine Video 1.5, from $0.02/sec | Not on the consumer plan pages | Veo 3.1, plus Google Flow credits |
| Live web data | Free tier, X and web | Browsing on paid tiers | Google Search grounding |
| Storage bundled | None | None | 400GB (Plus), 5TB (Pro), 20TB+ (Ultra) |
| Ads | No | Planned on Free and Go in the US | No |
Grok: the live-data one
Grok is the only one of the three that puts real-time web and X search on the free tier rather than behind a subscription. If your question depends on what happened in the last hour, that is a structural advantage, not a marketing line.
What you actually get
- Free ($0): real-time web and X search, voice mode, connectors, SOC 2 Type I and II compliance.
- SuperGrok ($30/month): the Grok 4 model, higher rate limits across all features, Expert, and image and video generation.
- API (grok-4.7): 500,000-token context, $2.00 per million input tokens and $6.00 per million output, described by xAI as agentic tool calling with minimal hallucinations and configurable reasoning.
Standout
xAI publishes a per-unit price for generation: Grok Imagine Image 2.0 starts at $0.02 per image at 1K and 2K, and Grok Imagine Video 1.5 starts at $0.02 per second across 480p, 720p and 1080p. Neither OpenAI nor Google publishes a comparable per-image consumer number, which makes Grok the only one of the three you can budget for precisely.
Honest limitation
The public plan grid lists SuperGrok Lite, SuperGrok Plus and SuperGrok Heavy but prints a price only for SuperGrok. If you want to compare the upper tiers you have to start a signup to see what they cost. The grok-4.7 knowledge cut-off is also May 2026, so anything newer comes from live search rather than the model.
Best for: news, markets, anything moving fast, and cost-predictable image or video generation.
ChatGPT: the broadest one
ChatGPT has the widest tier ladder and the cheapest genuine upgrade. ChatGPT Go rolled out worldwide on 16 January 2026 at $8/month in the US, with pricing localised in some markets.
What you actually get
- Free ($0): the base experience. OpenAI has said ads are planned for the free tier and Go in the US.
- Go ($8/month): GPT-5.2 Instant, longer memory and context, and 10x the free tier on messages, file uploads and image creation.
- Plus ($20/month): GPT-5.2 Thinking, access to legacy models, the Codex coding agent, higher limits on messages, uploads, memory and context, and no ads.
Standout
The $8 Go tier is the best value step in this entire comparison. It is the only sub-$10 plan among the three that multiplies your limits tenfold rather than adding a single feature, and it is available everywhere ChatGPT is.
Honest limitation
Go is the tier that will carry ads in the US, so the cheapest upgrade is also the one with a commercial layer on top. Going ad-free means $20/month for Plus. OpenAI also does not publish ChatGPT Pro pricing on its main plans page.
Best for: general-purpose work, coding with Codex, and anyone who wants a meaningful upgrade for under $10.
Gemini: the long-context one
Gemini is the only one of the three where the subscription is not really about the chatbot. Google AI plans bundle storage, Colab compute, Google Cloud credits and Workspace features, so the comparison is unfair in both directions.
What you actually get
- Google AI Plus: 400GB storage, double the Gemini access of a non-AI subscriber, Gemini 4 Argon and Gemini 3.6 Flash, Deep Research, 50 Colab compute units and 200 Google Flow credits a month.
- Google AI Pro: 5TB storage, four times the access, Gemini 4 Argon with expanded Gemini 3.1 Pro and Deep Research, a stated one-million-token context window, 200 Colab compute units, $10/month in Google Cloud credits and 1,000 Flow credits.
- Google AI Ultra: $100/month for the 5x tier at 20TB, or $200/month for the 20x tier, which Google cut from $250 on 19 May 2026. Adds Project Genie, Gemini Agent (US and English only), 2,000 Colab units, $40 in Cloud credits and YouTube Premium in over 40 countries.
Standout
The one-million-token context on Google AI Pro is the single biggest spec gap in this comparison. Grok 4.7 tops out at 500,000 tokens through the API. If your work is feeding entire codebases, contract sets or book-length documents into a model, this is not a close call.
Honest limitation
Google describes its generation limits in words rather than numbers. The plan pages say "More", "Expanded", "Higher" and "Highest" access to image, music and video models, with no counts anywhere except Flow credits. Since May 2026 the Gemini app also moved from daily prompt limits to a compute-based model that refreshes every five hours until you hit a weekly cap, and when you exhaust the biggest models you are shifted down to smaller ones. You cannot work out in advance what you are buying.
Best for: long documents, Google Workspace users, and anyone who would pay for the cloud storage anyway.
Which one should you pay for?
| If you... | Pick | Why |
|---|
| Need today’s information, constantly | Grok free | Live X and web search is not paywalled |
| Want the cheapest useful upgrade | ChatGPT Go, $8/mo | 10x messages, uploads and image creation |
| Work with very long documents | Google AI Pro | One-million-token context, 5TB storage |
| Generate images at volume | Grok / SuperGrok | Only vendor publishing a per-image price |
| Already pay for Google storage | Google AI Plus or Pro | The storage you buy anyway carries the AI |
| Code daily | ChatGPT Plus, $20/mo | Codex agent plus GPT-5.2 Thinking |
| Refuse to see ads | ChatGPT Plus or Grok | ChatGPT Free and Go carry US ads; Grok does not |
| Want video generation you can price | SuperGrok, $30/mo | Grok Imagine Video 1.5 from $0.02/sec |
The stack most people actually end up with
Almost nobody picks one. The combination below costs $28/month and covers more ground than any single $30 subscription:
- Grok free for anything time-sensitive. Live search, no subscription.
- ChatGPT Go at $8/month as the daily driver, because the 10x limits cover ordinary volume.
- Google AI Pro when a document is too long for the other two, and because the 5TB replaces a storage plan you were already paying for.
- SuperGrok at $30/month only if you generate images or video regularly enough that $0.02 per image becomes the deciding number.
The two places this stack breaks down: you are paying two subscriptions instead of one, and context does not travel between them. If you need one assistant that remembers everything, pick the single tier that matches your heaviest task and accept it will be second-best at the others.
Frequently asked questions
Which is better, Grok, ChatGPT or Gemini?
For live information, Grok, because real-time X and web search sits on its free tier. For general daily work at the lowest price, ChatGPT Go at $8/month. For long documents, Gemini, because Google AI Pro states a one-million-token context window against grok-4.7’s 500,000.
Which has the best free tier?
Grok, narrowly. Its free tier includes real-time web and X search, voice mode and connectors with no ads. ChatGPT’s free tier is broader in tooling but OpenAI has said ads are planned for it in the US.
Is ChatGPT Go worth $8 a month?
If you hit free-tier limits, yes. Go gives 10x the free tier on messages, file uploads and image creation, plus GPT-5.2 Instant and a longer context. The caveat is that ads are expected on Go in the US, so going genuinely ad-free means $20/month for Plus.
Why does this page not list the Google AI Pro price?
Google does not print its AI Plus and AI Pro monthly prices on its plan comparison pages; they appear at checkout in local currency. Rather than repeat a figure from a third-party roundup, this page says the price is not published. The Ultra prices of $100 and $200 a month are included because Google stated them directly.
Which is cheapest for generating images?
Grok, and it is the only one you can calculate. Grok Imagine Image 2.0 starts at $0.02 per image at 1K and 2K through the API. OpenAI describes image creation in multiples of the free tier, and Google describes it as "More" or "Expanded" access with no numbers.
Can I use all three for free?
Yes, and plenty of people do. All three have free tiers. The practical limit is that none of them share memory or context, so you repeat yourself every time you switch.
Related comparisons
Sources
All plan prices and model names on this page were read from the vendor pages above on 29 October 2026. Where a vendor does not publish a monthly price on its own plan page, this page says so rather than repeating a third-party figure. Consumer AI pricing changes often and is localised by country, so check the vendor page before you subscribe.