ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini: picking among the top AI vendors

The three top AI vendors are OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude) and Google (Gemini). For a side hustle they cost about the same at the tier you’d actually pay for, roughly $20 a month, so choose the one that fits your work, whatever the brand. Claude suits long-form writing and code, and it has a clearly documented training switch. Gemini makes sense if you already work in Gmail and Google Drive and want cheap storage bundled in. ChatGPT works if your clients already use it and you’re willing to pay for the ad-free Plus plan. Start on the free tiers, run one real task through all three, and pay only for the winner.

What AI speeds up here

The leaderboard, and why it barely matters to you

Which vendor counts as “top” depends on what you measure. Each headline number below uses a different method:

• Enterprise API spending. Menlo Ventures’ 2025 enterprise report estimated that Anthropic took 40% of enterprise LLM API spending in 2025, OpenAI 27% and Google 21%. Meta’s Llama, Cohere, Mistral and smaller players shared the remaining 12%. The figures come from a November 2025 survey of 495 US enterprise AI decision-makers and are estimated dollars spent, not counts of users. For coding, Menlo put Anthropic at about 54% and OpenAI at about 21%.
• Businesses paying each vendor. Ramp tracks which of its own 70,000+ US business customers pay for which AI. TechCrunch reported that Anthropic was at nearly 44% in July 2026 and OpenAI at nearly 40%, with OpenAI growing faster so far in Q3. This covers Ramp’s customers only, not the whole country.
• Consumer users. Google says more than 1 billion people use the Gemini app every month. OpenAI’s reported figure was more than 900 million weekly users and more than 50 million paying subscribers (April 2026). Monthly and weekly counts measure different things, so you can’t compare them directly.

None of this tells you which tool writes better Etsy listings or cleaner Python for your client. It does show that none of the three is a fragile startup. Anthropic raised $65 billion in May 2026, and OpenAI closed a $122 billion round that spring. For you, the bigger risk is plans and limits changing under you. ChatGPT added a new $100 tier in April 2026, for example. Build your workflow so you could switch tools in an afternoon.

What each one costs right now

Sources: Claude’s pricing page and Google’s US subscriptions page. The ChatGPT figures come from TechCrunch’s April 2026 report, so check OpenAI’s own page before you subscribe.

Some quick math before you pay anything:

• Claude Pro billed annually works out to $204 a year, against $240 billed monthly, so you save $36. Commit for a year only after the free tier has shown the tool is worth it.
• Google AI Pro also includes 5 TB of storage and the Jules coding agent. If you already pay Google for storage, the AI part may cost you less than the sticker price suggests.
• Microsoft 365 Personal ($9.99/month) includes AI features. Microsoft says only the subscription owner can use them, they can’t be shared, and usage limits apply. If you already pay for it, use it before adding another $20 plan.
• According to the same TechCrunch report, ChatGPT’s Free and Go tiers show ads. If you screen-share with clients, that may push you toward Plus.

In our view, a new side hustle rarely needs more than the $20 tier. The $100+ plans are built for heavy daily coding or very high volume. Upgrade once you keep hitting limits on billable work. For the wider tool stack around these assistants, see AI tools for freelancers: 10 worth trying and what they cost.

Match the vendor to the hustle

Freelance writing, ghostwriting, newsletters. Try Claude and ChatGPT side by side. Voice is personal, and a 15-minute test with your own brief tells you more than any review. One point in Claude’s favor for client work: Anthropic’s consumer terms assign its rights in outputs to you, the user. Claude also requires users to be 18 or older, so teen hustlers can’t use it. More on the writing side in AI tools for freelance writers: which ones earn their keep.

Coding gigs. The coder-focused plans sit at very different prices. ChatGPT Pro costs $100 and gives 5x Plus’s Codex usage. Claude Max starts at $100. Google AI Pro, at $19.99, already includes Jules. On a small budget, GitHub Copilot’s free plan (2,000 completions and 50 chat requests a month) plus one free chat assistant goes a long way.

Virtual assistant and admin work. If your clients run on Gmail, Docs and Calendar, Gemini sits right where the work happens. At $4.99/month, Google AI Plus is the cheapest paid plan of the three.

Social media and visual content. Google says the Gemini app generates more than 150 million images a day, so image creation is a core feature there. Most finished graphics still get laid out in Canva, whose Free plan includes up to 20 AI uses. Our ChatGPT and Canva workflow shows how the two fit together.

Check the privacy switch before you paste client work

If you paste a client’s draft, customer list or code into a chatbot, you need to know whether that material can be used for training.

• Gemini (personal accounts): Google’s Gemini privacy help page says that with Keep Activity on, your activity is used to improve its services, including training generative AI models, and human reviewers read a subset of chats. To stop that for future chats, turn Keep Activity off or use a Temporary Chat. Even then, those chats stay with your account for 72 hours, and chats a reviewer has already read can be kept for up to three years.
• Claude (Free, Pro and Max): Anthropic’s privacy center says your chats may be used to improve models in three cases: you allow it in the Model Improvement setting, a chat is flagged for safety review, or you opt in to a program such as Trusted Tester. Incognito chats are not used to improve Claude. Thumbs-up and thumbs-down feedback is kept for up to five years, separated from your user ID.
• ChatGPT: read OpenAI’s own data controls documentation and check your settings before pasting anything sensitive. Don’t rely on a blog summary, this one included.

The simplest habit is to remove names, emails and anything under NDA before you paste. If a client contract restricts AI use, follow the contract, whatever your settings are.

Who owns what comes out

Vendor terms are only half the picture. In Part 2 of its AI report (January 2025), the US Copyright Office said prompts alone don’t give enough human control to make you the author. Human selection, arrangement or changes can still be protected. So when a client buys a logo or an ebook from you, their rights are strongest in the parts you actually shaped. Tell clients this upfront when you sell AI-assisted creative work, and keep your edited versions.

Prompt you can copy: the three-way bake-off

Treat this as a structured test with scores:

1. Pick one real task from last week’s work and remove the client details.
2. Open the free tier of ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini in three tabs. Best free AI tools for freelancers covers where those free tiers stop.
3. Paste the same prompt into each.
4. Score each answer on accuracy, voice, how many edits it needs, and whether it asked useful questions.
5. Repeat with a second, different task. One task proves nothing.

I run a side hustle doing [service, e.g. product descriptions for handmade jewelry shops].
My typical client is [who pays you and what they care about most].

Task: [paste the real task, with names and private details removed]
Constraints: [length, tone, format, anything the client always asks for]

1. Complete the task.
2. List every factual claim in your answer that I should verify before sending, and say why each one might be wrong.
3. Ask me up to three questions that would make your next draft better for this client.

Watch how each tool handles the second instruction. A tool that flags its own shaky claims saves you more time than one that only sounds confident.

Where AI falls over

• Made-up facts. All three can invent stats, quotes and sources. Check every number before it reaches a client or goes live.
• Generic output. Without your examples and client context, the drafts all sound alike. Give the tool a sample of writing the client has already approved.
• Limits at the worst moment. Paid plans still have usage caps. Test a tool under real workload before you rely on it for a deadline.
• Fake reviews. The FTC’s 2024 rule bans fake reviews and testimonials, and AI-generated ones are covered too. Never write them for a client, however politely they ask.
• “AI income” courses. The FTC’s Operation AI Comply targeted AI-powered passive income schemes. One of them, Ascend Ecom, took at least $25 million from people. None of these subscriptions makes income passive.
• Marketplace rules. Fiverr launched its own AI tools (Fiverr Go) in February 2025, and freelance platforms keep updating their AI policies. Read the current help-center rules on Fiverr or Upwork before you deliver AI-assisted work there.

The human-only part

The vendor you pick matters less than what you add yourself. AI can’t sit on a discovery call, notice that a client’s “quick blog post” is really a positioning problem, or tell when a draft is technically correct but wrong for the brand. Clients pay for that judgment and come back for it. The $20 tool just gets you there faster.

A quick note on deducting the subscription

IRS Publication 334 says business expenses must be “ordinary” and “necessary”. If you also use the tool for personal things, you have to separate out the personal part, which generally isn’t deductible. The publication doesn’t mention software by name. Keep receipts and a rough record of business versus personal use. This is general information, not tax advice, so check with a tax professional if the amounts matter to you.

Try it in 20 minutes

Pick the smallest piece of paid work you did this month, such as a product description, a client email or a 20-line script. Remove the private details and run the bake-off prompt above through the free tiers of ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Spend five minutes editing each answer until you’d actually send it, and time how long each one takes. The tool that needs the fewest edits is your starting vendor. Don’t pay for anything until it also wins a second round with a different task.