What does it cost to keep an AI chatbot running each month?

If you want more than the free version of an AI chatbot, you will typically pay around $20 a month. That is the assessment of the comparison service SentiSight, which went through pricing at the major providers in January 2026. The prices below are in dollars, as the exchange rate is not stated.

Claude: from free to $200

At Anthropic, the company behind Claude, you can start for free. The free plan has limited usage per 5 hours and per week, and includes web search, file creation and code execution.

Claude Pro costs $20 a month with monthly billing, or $17 a month if you pay for a full year at a time.

Claude Max costs $100 a month. It provides five times the Pro usage per 5-hour period and per week, $100 in monthly API credits and priority access during periods of heavy traffic. API credits are used by people who build their own applications on top of Claude.

At the top of Anthropic's pricing page is a plan called Ultra, at $200 a month. It has no 5-hour limit for verified accounts, ten times the Pro usage per week and $200 in monthly API credits. The names and structure of the plans appear to have changed since January, so always check the provider's own page.

Google, ChatGPT and Grok

Google has three paid AI plans in Denmark: AI Plus (400 GB of storage), AI Pro (5 TB) and AI Ultra (at least 20 TB). Danish prices are not listed on Google's page. AI Pro includes YouTube Premium Lite and $10 in monthly Google Cloud credits, among other things, while AI Ultra includes regular YouTube Premium and $40 in cloud credits. Students can get AI Plus free for one year.

According to SentiSight, Google AI Pro cost $19.99 and AI Ultra cost $249.99 a month in January 2026. Ultra included video generation and experimental features, among other things.

The same comparison states that ChatGPT Plus cost $20 and ChatGPT Pro cost $200 a month. Team seats for businesses were $25-30 per user. At xAI, SuperGrok cost $30, X Premium+ cost $40 and SuperGrok Heavy cost $300 a month.

What does this mean for you?

For most everyday users, the middle tier at around $20 a month is the relevant one. The expensive plans at $100-300 are aimed at people who use the chatbot very intensively. The figures for ChatGPT and Google date from January 2026 and may have changed since.