// comparison

Claude vs Gemini: Which AI Assistant Fits You?

By the Intelsi editorial team at Ahzy Capital · Prices last verified Oct 28, 2026 · How we test

Claude (Anthropic) and Gemini (Google) now sit very close at the top. Claude's default paid model is Claude Opus 5.5, with Claude Fable 5.1 above it for the hardest work. Google's flagship, Gemini 4 Argon, reached Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app on October 13, 2026. The main paid plans cost about the same, so the real choice is where you work: Gemini lives inside Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Android, while Claude is a standalone workspace built for long documents, careful writing and code.

Claude vs Gemini at a glance (official sources)
	Claude	Gemini
What it is	Anthropic's assistant family, known for long context analysis, careful writing and strong coding. Available on web, desktop and mobile with projects and artifacts.	Google's multimodal assistant that works across text, images, audio and video, with deep links into Search, Gmail, Docs and other Google services.
Category	Frontier Models	Frontier Models
Free tier	Yes ($0)	Yes ($0)
Entry paid price	Pro $17/mo billed annually	$4.99/mo plan
Pricing source	Official page	Official page
Last verified	Oct 28, 2026	Oct 28, 2026

Current models

Anthropic sells four lines: Fable 5.1, Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5. Anthropic says Opus 5.5 performs at Fable 5.1's level on most work and recommends it as the starting point. Google's lineup runs from Flash-Lite and Flash up to the Pro model and Gemini 4 Argon, which Google made generally available on October 13 as gemini-4-argon.

Free tier

Claude's free plan includes Sonnet, web search and memory, per Claude's pricing page. Gemini's free tier is now limited to the Flash-Lite model in the Gemini app, a change Google made on October 9. For free use today, Claude gives you the stronger model.

Plan prices

Claude Pro costs $20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually, and includes Opus 5.5, Claude Code and Research, with Fable 5.1 available through usage credits. Max starts at $100 a month. Google AI Plus costs $4.99 with Flash models only. Google AI Pro costs $19.99 and adds Argon, Deep Research and 5 TB of storage. Google AI Ultra costs $99.99 or $199.99 a month depending on usage level.

API prices and context

On the API, Opus 5.5 costs $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens, Sonnet 5.5 costs $2 and $10, and Fable 5.1 costs $10 and $50. Gemini 4 Argon costs $2 and $10 through November 30, 2026, then $4 and $20 from December 1, per Google's pricing page. Argon is not on the free API tier. Both companies offer about a million tokens of context: every current Claude model handles 1M tokens, and Argon's unified context is 1,048,576 tokens.

Workspace integration

Gemini works directly in Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Search, and Google bundles storage with its paid plans. If your company already pays for Google Workspace, check whether Gemini is included before buying anything. Claude connects through Claude in Chrome and Microsoft 365, which suits teams that work outside Google's apps.

Coding

Claude's paid plans include Claude Code, Anthropic's coding agent, and Opus 5.5 offers a fast mode at up to 2.5 times the output speed. Gemini 4 Argon is available to developers in Google AI Studio, Android Studio and Google Antigravity, with code execution and function calling in the API.

Verdict

Pick Gemini if you already live in Google's apps, want the cheapest step up from free, or want a large storage bundle with your plan. Pick Claude if your work is long writing, document analysis or coding, or if you want the better free model today. Both paid plans cost about $20 a month, so test each one on your own tasks before you commit.

Sources

Prices change often. See the live pricing tracker for the latest checked figures.