The three plans at a glance
All three flagship consumer plans sit in the €20–24/month band once you pay in Europe. The US dollar stickers are nearly identical ($19.99–$20), but local pricing and VAT treatment create a real gap on your invoice.
| Plan | US price | EU price (typical all-in) | Best for | Training on your chats? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT Plus | $20 / month | €23.50 / month (VAT incl.) | Generalist use, tools, app ecosystem | Default on unless you opt out |
| Claude Pro | $20 / month | €17 + local VAT (≈ €20.20–20.60) | Writing, coding, privacy-conscious teams | No — consumer content is not used for training |
| Gemini Advanced (Google AI Pro) | $19.99 / month | €21.99 / month (VAT incl.) | Google ecosystem, storage, long context | Default on unless you opt out |
Quick math with Czech VAT (21%): ChatGPT Plus €23.50, Gemini Advanced €21.99, Claude Pro €17 + 21% = €20.57. Moving 50 users from ChatGPT Plus to Claude Pro saves roughly €147/month — almost €1,800/year, before you hit the very different usage limits. Those limits are the catch, so let's look at each plan properly.
ChatGPT Plus: the tool-shed all-rounder
OpenAI's consumer plan remains the default choice for one simple reason: the widest tool ecosystem. You get the latest GPT flagship in the ChatGPT app, real-time web search, Advanced Voice Mode for actual spoken conversation, image understanding, file uploads, data analysis, and access to custom GPTs. Deep research — OpenAI's multi-step agent that browses and compiles a cited report — is included. Plus users also get a limited quota of video generation, which has been part of the bundle since the feature became generally available.
For a solo professional, this is the most "everything in one box" option. The catch is the rate limits: OpenAI does not publish exact message counts, and Plus users can hit caps on the highest-capability models during peak hours. In our experience running production pipelines, ChatGPT Plus is a great assistant, but you should not architect any automated workflow around it — for the API you pay separately anyway (subscriptions and API credits are two completely different billing systems).
Claude Pro: the writer's and coder''s pick
Anthropic's Pro plan gives you access to Anthropic's latest Opus- and Sonnet-class models with a multiple-times-higher limit than the free tier. The real differentiators are Artifacts (an interactive pane where Claude writes documents, code and small apps you can use immediately) and Projects (persistent workspaces with custom instructions and pinned context). Web search and a voice mode came to the consumer app over the last year.
For long-form writing, nuanced editing and coding tasks, Claude is still the default in many of our editorial workflows. The model "thinks" in longer arcs and is noticeably harder to trip into sloppy summarisation than most competitors — a trait that matters when you publish technical content.
There is also an EU-specific reason to look seriously at Claude Pro: Anthropic's consumer terms do not train their models on your Pro conversations by default. That is a meaningful privacy advantage — one that GDPR-conscious European users tend to underestimate. Claude is available across the EU, including the Czech Republic, with the €17 base price plus local VAT.
Gemini Advanced: the Google ecosystem play
Gemini Advanced is now effectively the consumer tier of the Google AI Pro plan (rebranded from Google One AI Premium). The headline benefit is not the model itself — it is the bundle: 2 TB of Google One storage, Gemini inside Gmail, Docs, Drive and Meet, NotebookLM Plus, deep research, live voice features, and image/video generation quotas with Google's latest Veo and Imagen models.
Google's flagship Gemini models have pushed very long context windows (1M+ tokens), which makes this the plan for people who paste entire documents, codebases or meeting transcripts into the prompt. If you live in the Google ecosystem — Calendar, Workspace, Android — the integration alone is worth more than the model quality differences.
The caveat: Gemini Apps conversations are used to improve Google products unless you switch the setting off, so check the privacy controls in your Google account. For EU business users, the consumer plan has the same problem as all three — no proper data-processing agreement for your company's personal data.
The European angle: VAT, GDPR and the AI Act
VAT makes the actual price. The "$20" you see in US reviews becomes €23.50 (OpenAI, VAT included), €17 + VAT (Anthropic) or €21.99 (Google, VAT included). For a Czech or German buyer, Claude Pro ends up cheapest at roughly €20–21 all-in.
GDPR is the real differentiator. All three consumer plans let you delete or export your data and offer opt-outs from training, but only Claude Pro skips training on consumer conversations by default. None of the consumer plans give you a proper Article 28 data processing agreement. If you are a company and your employees paste personal data of EU customers into a consumer subscription, you are the data processor of record — and the provider's consumer terms will not cover you. For that, you need the business tiers: ChatGPT Business, Claude Team, or Gemini for Google Workspace, all of which offer zero-training defaults and a DPA.
AI Act impact is quieter than advertised. Since August 2025, general-purpose AI providers are subject to the full transparency and copyright rules of the EU AI Act. In practice, subscribers get better model documentation and clearer accountability — but the Act does not give you new consumer rights. Vendor selection still runs on GDPR contracts, not on AI Act hype.
Which one should you pick?
Stop reading model benchmarks and think about workload:
- Choose ChatGPT Plus if you want one assistant for everything — research, voice, files, custom GPTs — and don't mind the €23.50 price.
- Choose Claude Pro if you write, edit, or code all day, want artifact-based workflows, care about the no-training default, and want to pay the least in the EU.
- Choose Gemini Advanced if you live in Google Workspace, need 2 TB of storage anyway, or regularly work with giant contexts (full codebases, long transcripts).
Then run a one-month test with the same task suite: write a 2,000-word article outline, refactor a script you actually use, research a topic with cited sources, and do one voice session. The winner is the one that survives contact with your real work — not the one with the best demo.
One more honest note from our side: we run AI Arena, our benchmark rig with an RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB, where we test local open-weight models. If your job involves sensitive EU personal data, a €0/month local model on Ollama can be a better GDPR fit than any cloud subscription — no training, no US data transfer, no vendor lock-in. These three paid plans are excellent, but they are not the only answer.
Can I use ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro or Gemini Advanced to process personal data of EU customers?
Not without proper safeguards. Consumer plans generally lack a GDPR Article 28 data processing agreement. Use business tiers (ChatGPT Business, Claude Team, Gemini for Workspace) for work with personal data, and disable training use in the consumer settings.
Which subscription is cheapest in the EU?
Claude Pro at €17 + local VAT (around €20.20–20.60 all-in), then Gemini Advanced at €21.99 and ChatGPT Plus at €23.50. The cheapest is not always the best value — check the usage limits against your workload.
Do I get API access with these subscriptions?
No. Subscriptions cover the chat apps and their front-end features; API access is billed separately per token for all three providers. If you build applications, budget for API costs on top of the subscription.
