Free or paid: reading a plan and planning your budget

This lesson is still being tested: it improves with learners' feedback. If something is unclear, it is the lesson that needs fixing, not you.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to

recognize the 3 ways of paying for an AI: free, subscription, pay-as-you-go;
read a pricing page: currency, taxes, monthly or yearly, usage limits;
know what the course requires, level by level;
plan your budget, and avoid being surprised by an automatic renewal.

Why it matters to you

The course is free. The tools are not always. Pricing pages are sometimes in dollars, sometimes excluding taxes, and their limits are written in small print: read the currency and the taxes on the page you have in front of you. Reading them well means paying only for what is useful to you, when it is useful to you.

Before you start


You need	A browser, your assistant’s ID sheet, and your calendar
Cost	€0: you read plans, you buy nothing
Duration	30 minutes

Understand it in 3 minutes

Three ways to pay:

Way to pay	How it works	Example
Free	€0, with usage limits (on Claude, per 5-hour period; on ChatGPT, unlimited written chats but limited files, images, and voice) and features reserved for paid plans	The Free plans of Claude and ChatGPT
Subscription	A fixed price per month, or sometimes per year (often cheaper per month, but paid all at once: this is the case for Claude Pro, not for ChatGPT Plus)	Claude Pro, ChatGPT Plus
Pay-as-you-go	You pay for what you use, as you go	Some advanced tools, or the AI used by software like Hermes Agent

The plans, as the official pages show them in France (Claude checked on 06/11/2026, ChatGPT on 24/10/2026; prices change depending on the country):

	Free	First paid tier	Above
Claude (claude.com/pricing)	Free: €0	Pro: €18 per month, or €15 per month when paying for the year (€180 at once), excl. VAT	Max: €90 per month; Ultra: €180 per month, excl. VAT
ChatGPT (chatgpt.com/pricing)	Free: €0	Go: €8 per month (this plan may include ads), then Plus: €23 per month	Pro: from €103 per month

Four things to read on a pricing page:

The currency: the page shows in your country’s money (in France, euros). Elsewhere, prices may be different: always note the one you see.
The taxes: Anthropic states that its prices are shown excl. VAT; the ChatGPT page does not say. The final amount appears at checkout.
The rhythm: monthly or yearly. Yearly is cheaper per month, but you commit for a year.
The usage limits: on Claude, every plan, even the free one, has limits that reset every 5 hours and every week. According to the plans page, Pro gives at least 5 times more usage than the free plan per 5-hour period; Max, 5 times more than Pro; Ultra, 10 times more than Pro each week, with no 5-hour limit for verified accounts. “More usage” does not mean “unlimited”.

What the course requires:

Level	What you need
A · Getting started	A free account is enough
B · Working with an agent	A subscription: Claude Code is included starting with Claude Pro. This is announced at the start of module 4
C and D	Depends on the tools you choose: each module announces its costs before you begin

Do it together

1Step 1: Read a real pricing page

Open claude.com/pricing and find these 4 pieces of information:

the monthly price of the Pro plan;
its price when paying yearly;
the mention of taxes;
what the free plan allows.

If a price has changed since the date shown, the official page is right, not this lesson.

2Step 2: Have the AI calculate, with your numbers

Don’t ask the AI for the prices: it may answer with old prices (lesson 2). Give it the prices you just noted, and ask it only for the calculation:

Here are the prices I noted today from the official pages:
[paste the prices here, with the date and the address of the page]
Calculate the total cost over 3 months and over 12 months for each plan.
Don't add any price I haven't given you, and remind me what could still change the final amount.

Redo one of the calculations yourself to check.

Your turn

Choose your budget for the next 3 months: free only, or a subscription.
Fill in the “My budget” section of your ID sheet: the plan, the price noted, the date, and the page where you read it.
If you ever subscribe, write down the renewal date right away, and set a reminder in your calendar 3 days before, with the question: “Do I use it enough to keep it?”

Check your work

The exercise worked if:

each price on your sheet has a date and a source;
you know whether your budget covers level B (the agent) or stops at level A, and both choices are valid;
if you have a subscription, a reminder exists in your calendar before its renewal.

Common pitfalls:

asking the AI for a price and believing it: it may be several months old;
forgetting taxes, then being surprised by the amount charged;
paying for the year to save money, before having tried it for a month;
confusing the course, which is free, with the tools, which may be paid.

Keep it and pick it up later

Your assistant’s ID sheet is complete: tool, privacy, “never” list, levels of use, budget, and first verified exchange. Keep it: you will update it whenever you change tool or plan.
You have finished module 1: mark this lesson as done, and your progress will show the complete module.

Going further

optional

The page Choosing your tool in this course gathers the plans and what each tool can do, with their check date.

New words

5 words explained

Word	What it means
Subscription	A fixed price paid every month or every year, until you cancel
Excl. VAT	A price without VAT, the sales tax used in Europe (other countries have their own taxes): the amount paid will be higher
Pay-as-you-go	You pay according to what you use, with no fixed price
Usage limit	The amount of use allowed over a period, even with a paid plan. On Claude, it depends on the length of the exchanges, the model, and the features used: it is not a fixed number of messages
Automatic renewal	The subscription extends and pays itself, unless you cancel before

Still to verify: the mention of taxes on the ChatGPT page, and the price in euros shown at checkout, for Claude as well as for ChatGPT.