According to the vendors, ChatGPT Business and Claude Team cost the same in dollars: 20 dollars per standard seat per month on an annual contract, 25 dollars when billed monthly, each from two people. The premium seat with five times the usage also costs the same with both: 100 dollars on an annual contract and 125 dollars monthly. Both say they don't train on your company's content by default, and with neither does data residency come with the team plan. Both offer a data processing agreement with Standard Contractual Clauses, just in different ways: at Anthropic the DPA is automatically part of the Commercial Terms, at OpenAI you conclude it through a form. The real difference lies in the agents included: ChatGPT Business comes with Codex and ChatGPT Work sharing one allowance, Claude Team comes with Claude Code and Claude Cowork.
This isn't legal advice, just the operator's perspective I use to run Claude in my own business, together with a reading of both vendors' documents as of November 15, 2026. I run my team of fifteen AI employees on Claude. For business data I use Claude Team, because of the data processing agreement and privacy. I regularly use Codex for review loops next to Claude Code. What this article says about ChatGPT Business comes from OpenAI's docs and help articles. Everything about Claude is collected on my Claude page.
Prices and seats compared
The figures come from both vendors' pricing pages and help articles. Both quote US dollars, Anthropic explicitly excluding taxes.
Both vendors say that prices and currency vary by country. Opened from Germany without signing in, the pricing pages showed euros on November 15, 2026: ChatGPT Business 21 euros per standard seat on an annual contract and 26 euros monthly, Premium 105 and 130 euros; Claude Team 18 euros and 21.04 euros, Premium 90 and 105.23 euros, according to Anthropic excluding taxes. Whether OpenAI's euro prices include taxes is not stated on the page. So check the final price for your company during checkout.
The arithmetic for three people is the same in dollars for both plans: three standard seats at 20 dollars on an annual contract, so 60 dollars a month, or 75 dollars when billed monthly. For a small team, the list price does not tip the balance between the two business plans. How Claude Team compares with separate Pro accounts is worked out in Claude Team: Cost and When It Pays Off.
The next tier is called Enterprise with both. According to Anthropic, Claude Enterprise costs 20 dollars per seat per month plus usage at API rates, billed annually, with a minimum of 20 seats. For ChatGPT Enterprise, OpenAI names no price and refers you to sales.
Privacy: DPA, training and data residency
For client data, three questions matter: Is there a data processing agreement? Does the vendor train on your content? And where is the data stored? The table shows what the vendors say as of November 15, 2026.
Two things stand out. First, the gap on residency is smaller than you might expect: on the team plan, neither gives you a commitment that your data stays in the EU. If you need that, OpenAI's route is Enterprise, where new customers can choose Europe as the storage location, and Anthropic's is a detour via Amazon Bedrock in EU regions, which I described in Claude on AWS Bedrock: EU, GDPR and Cost. Second, the defaults differ in how open they are. In ChatGPT Business, plugins and apps are on; in Claude Team, Cowork tasks run in the cloud and the built-in browser is on. Either can be right for your team. But decide it deliberately, before the first client file is connected.
I won't repeat here what a GDPR review of Claude involves in detail: that is in Claude Privacy and GDPR: What Applies, and the step from Team to Enterprise is in Claude Enterprise or Team: Cost and GDPR.
What Codex and ChatGPT Work deliver on the Business plan
According to the pricing page, ChatGPT Business includes "Access ChatGPT and Codex across desktop and mobile apps". That covers two agents sharing one allowance. OpenAI writes: "ChatGPT Work and Codex share usage."
Codex is the coding agent: command line, editor extension, web and cloud tasks, on Business with "Larger virtual machines to run cloud chats faster" according to the pricing page. Codex reads your repository, changes files and reviews changes. How to set up Codex and use it as a reviewer next to Claude Code is covered in a separate article.
The steps for Windows, Mac and Linux are in Install Codex on Windows, Mac and Linux.
ChatGPT Work, according to OpenAI, is "a way to delegate real work to ChatGPT": presentations, comparison spreadsheets, analyses and recurring tasks, with plugins for Slack, Google Drive, SharePoint, email and calendars. According to the docs, Work uses the same technology as Codex, just with an interface designed for office work.
For usage, OpenAI gives estimates, not fixed limits. Standard Business has the same values as Plus: 15 to 160 local messages per five hours with GPT-6.1 Sol, 350 to 3,000 with GPT-6 Luna, and weekly limits may apply. According to OpenAI, a premium seat has five times the usage and no five-hour limit. Starting in December, according to the pricing page, plan usage will have a shared limit across all of ChatGPT and Codex. Not in Business but only in Enterprise: Codex Security for connected GitHub repositories, the analytics dashboard for Codex and the Compliance API. OpenAI lists Computer Use, Chrome control and Record & Replay as limited on all plans in its feature table; according to the docs, Computer Use is available only "in supported regions", without naming them.
What Claude Code and Cowork deliver on the Team plan
According to the pricing page, Claude Team includes "Claude Code and Claude Cowork", and according to the help center that applies to standard seats too.
Claude Code is the agent for terminal, editor and desktop app that I run my team on. Claude Cowork, according to Anthropic, brings the same agent architecture into the Claude app without a terminal: documents, spreadsheets, presentations, research and scheduled tasks. On Team, Cowork tasks run in the cloud by default, and an owner can turn this off. On web and mobile, Cowork is still marked as beta on Team. What Cowork can do in detail is in Claude Cowork: What It Does, Who It's For.
Anthropic counts usage in multiples of Pro: a standard seat gets 1.25x the Pro usage per session, a premium seat 6.25x, both with a weekly limit across all models. The limits apply per person, not to the whole team. Standard and premium seats can be mixed in the same workspace. On top come connectors to Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, GitHub, Microsoft 365 and Slack.
What about the proactive agents?
Both vendors now build agents that reach out on their own: OpenAI with dots, Anthropic with Claude Duet. For choosing the business plan they play a small role today. According to OpenAI, dots on ChatGPT Business come only with a premium seat and "in supported ChatGPT regions"; the page doesn't say which regions those are. On the Pro plan, OpenAI explicitly excludes the European Economic Area. In Enterprise, dots are on by default from November 18, 2026, unless the workspace opts out. For Enterprise workspaces with data residency, OpenAI now also names Europe as a storage location for new dots, while one passage in the admin FAQ still says dots don't support residency. Clarify this with OpenAI before you turn them on. According to Anthropic, Duet is only a research preview in the US, for Pro, Max and Ultra, not for Team. More on that in Claude Duet: What Anthropic's Agent Does. If you want to run such an agent on your own machine without a business plan, the comparison with Nod from n8n is in Claude Cowork Alternative: Nod Compared.
Why a proactive agent from a consumer plan raises its own privacy question at work is what I wrote up in my article on Claude Duet and the GDPR.
Which plan fits which team
My assessment, as a heuristic rather than a rule:
- Your team writes a lot of code and thinks in repositories. Then the coding agent decides. I compared the two tools in Claude Code, Codex or Copilot: Which One?. The price per seat is the same, the way of working is not.
- Your team wants to hand off office work. Then the question is ChatGPT Work or Claude Cowork. Both deliver finished files and keep working without you. The difference lies more in the integrations your team already uses and in the defaults above.
- You need an EU commitment on storage location. Then neither team plan is enough. With OpenAI the route would be Enterprise with data residency in Europe, with Anthropic Bedrock in an EU region.
- You need the DPA in writing before you start. For Claude Team it is documented as part of the Commercial Terms. For ChatGPT Business, conclude it through OpenAI's DPA form before the first client data goes in.
Switching costs more than the seat prices in either direction: projects, instructions and integrations don't move by themselves. OpenAI now offers an import from Claude Code and Claude Cowork into the ChatGPT desktop app, which according to the docs leaves the original unchanged.
Frequently asked questions
Is ChatGPT Business GDPR compliant?
I can't answer that across the board, and it is not a property of a product alone. What is documented: OpenAI does not train on your data by default on Business, offers a DPA with Standard Contractual Clauses for Business that you conclude through a form, and data residency comes only with Enterprise. Whether that is enough for your case belongs on your data protection officer's list before you sign.
Does OpenAI train on my ChatGPT Business data?
Not by default, according to OpenAI's pricing page: "No training on your business data by default." The exception is data you explicitly share, for example through feedback. Anthropic says the same for Claude Team.
Is Codex included in ChatGPT Business?
Yes. According to the pricing page, ChatGPT and Codex on desktop and mobile are part of the Business plan, along with ChatGPT Work. Codex and Work share the allowance.
Can I keep data in the EU with ChatGPT Business or Claude Team?
Not on the team plan with either, based on what the vendors publish as of November 15, 2026. OpenAI offers data residency in Europe for new Enterprise and Edu customers. Anthropic describes data residency only for the API, with "us" as the only workspace geo; for Claude, EU regions are available through cloud providers such as Amazon Bedrock.
From how many people does a business plan pay off?
Both start at two people. An annual Team seat costs as much as Pro billed monthly (20 dollars); compared with Pro on an annual plan (17 dollars), it is 3 dollars more per person. As soon as several people work with client data, a business plan is my default, not the exception.
Where to go from here
Before you decide, check the three privacy questions from the table against the vendors' current pages, and ask for any missing documents before you sign. If it comes down to Claude Team, Claude Team: Cost and When It Pays Off works out the seats for your team. How to use Claude with privacy in mind day to day is in Claude Privacy and GDPR: What Applies. And how other companies set up their plans and AI employees is what I show in my community AI Employee Framework.
