What each tool costs, what its free tier actually allows, how much text it can hold, and who it fits. Read the table, then the two tools you're deciding between.
| Tool | What it is | Free tier | Context | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | OpenAI's general assistant with tools, files, voice and images | Yes | 1,050,000 tokens on GPT-6 Astra (922K max input, 128K max output); GPT-6.1 Sol inside ChatGPT Work defaults to 500K (checked 2026-10-29) | All-round daily office work and drafting; People who |
| Claude | Anthropic's assistant built for long documents and code edits | Yes | Up to 1M tokens, varying with the selected model (checked 2026-10-29) | Long-document analysis and report writing; Engineeri |
| Gemini | Google's assistant wired into Gmail, Docs and Search | Yes | 1M tokens (Gemini 4 Argon unified context; Pro models take 1M input and 64K output) (checked 2026-10-29) | Heavy Google Workspace users; Multimodal and video g |
| Grok | xAI's assistant with a live X feed and 500K context | Yes | 500K tokens (grok-4.7) (checked 2026-10-29) | Tracking overseas reaction while it happens; English |
| DeepSeek | Open-weight reasoning model with very low API prices | Yes | 1M tokens of context; up to 384K tokens of output (checked 2026-10-29) | Budget-sensitive developers; Chinese writing and tra |
| Doubao | ByteDance's free Chinese assistant, voice and images first | Yes | 1M tokens (doubao-seed-2.1-pro; Volcano Ark prices 0-1024K input in bands) (checked 2026-10-29) | Everyday questions and spoken practice; Short-video |
| Kimi | Moonshot's assistant built around 1M-token reading | Yes | 1,048,576 tokens (K3 series); 262,144 tokens on the K2 series (checked 2026-10-29) | Reading long reports and papers; Organizing Chinese |
| Qwen | Alibaba's Qwen assistant with open weights and cloud APIs | Yes | 1,000,000 tokens (qwen3.8-max; 991,808 max input, 131,072 max output) (checked 2026-10-29) | Chinese office documents and tables; Teams already r |
| Yuanbao | Tencent's free assistant tied into WeChat content | Yes | — | Free PPT and spreadsheet generation; WeChat and publ |
| GitHub Copilot | AI coding assistant that runs inside your editor | Yes | — | Professional developers writing code daily; Team cod |
| Perplexity | Answer engine that cites sources on every reply | Yes | — | Research where sources must be checkable; Fact-check |
See which tools have a usable free tier — and more importantly, where each free tier actually runs out.
See ChatGPT alternatives, split by free use, coding, and long-document work.
Every number here was checked against the vendor's own pricing or docs page on 2026-10-29, and each product page links its sources. Where a figure couldn't be confirmed it says so instead of guessing. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and no vendor paid to be listed.