For an Irish business choosing between ChatGPT Business, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Gemini and Claude, the best fit is usually the one that works inside the software your team already uses. A firm on Microsoft 365 should look at Copilot first. A firm on Google Workspace already has Gemini in its plan. ChatGPT Business and Claude Team suit a team that wants a separate assistant. As of September 2026, list prices run from $20 to $25 per user per month for ChatGPT Business and Claude Team, and €18.20 for the Copilot add-on. When the answers you need sit in systems none of the four can read, the alternative is a private AI assistant built on your own documents.
What do ChatGPT Business, Copilot, Gemini and Claude cost per user?
Every price here was read from the vendor’s own page on 30 September 2026. Microsoft and Google publish euro prices for Ireland. OpenAI and Anthropic publish US dollar prices, and OpenAI says the amount can vary by country and currency.
Scroll the table sideways for the full detail
| Product | List price per user per month | Seats | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Copilot Business (add-on) | €18.20 paid yearly, ex VAT. €15.60 for the first year if bought between 1 July and 31 December 2026 | Up to 300. Needs a qualifying Microsoft 365 Business plan | Microsoft Ireland |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot | €20.36 paid yearly, ex VAT | Up to 300 | Microsoft Ireland |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium with Copilot | €27.73 paid yearly, ex VAT | Up to 300 | Microsoft Ireland |
| ChatGPT Business, Standard seat | $20 billed annually, or $25 billed monthly | Minimum 2 | OpenAI Help Center |
| Gemini in Google Workspace | Included in the plan: Business Starter €6.80, Standard €13.60, Plus €21.10 with a one-year commitment, ex tax | Up to 300 | Google Workspace Ireland |
| Claude Team, Standard seat | $20 billed annually, or $25 billed monthly, ex tax | 2 to 150 | Claude pricing |
ChatGPT Business and Claude Team both sell a Premium seat with higher usage limits at $100 per user per month billed annually, or $125 billed monthly. Google’s figures are its regular prices, before the introductory discounts on offer that day.
For a ten-person firm already on Microsoft 365, the Copilot add-on comes to €2,184 a year before VAT at the regular price. Ten ChatGPT Business or Claude Team seats on annual billing come to $2,400 a year.
Which one fits the software you already use?
Pick by where your documents and email live.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot works in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams. It answers from the emails, chats and documents each user has permission to open.
- Gemini comes with Google Workspace. Business Starter includes Gemini in Gmail and the Gemini app. Business Standard extends it to Docs, Meet and other apps.
- ChatGPT Business is a shared workspace with central billing and admin controls. Standard seats include Projects, GPTs, Deep Research and Company Knowledge, the feature that searches connected apps.
- Claude Team includes single sign-on, Claude for Microsoft 365, search across your organisation’s connected tools and admin control over connectors.
A team on Outlook and SharePoint gets the shortest route with Copilot. A team on Gmail and Drive has Gemini at no extra seat price. ChatGPT Business and Claude Team suit a mixed setup, or staff who mostly write, analyse and research in a chat window.
Is ChatGPT Business GDPR compliant?
No AI product is GDPR compliant by itself. Your business is the data controller for any personal data staff put into it, and compliance depends on how you set it up and use it.
OpenAI supplies two things you need. Its help page for ChatGPT Business states that “OpenAI won’t train on your workspace’s data”. Its Data Processing Addendum is entered into with OpenAI Ireland Ltd when the customer is based in the European Economic Area. That addendum matters because Article 28 of the GDPR requires a binding contract between a controller and any processor.
OpenAI’s help centre says data residency for ChatGPT Business is rolling out gradually and is not yet available to every workspace (OpenAI). If EU storage matters to you, get it confirmed for your workspace in writing before you buy.
Is Microsoft Copilot GDPR compliant, and how do Gemini and Claude compare?
The same rule applies to all three. The vendor gives commitments and your business stays responsible for its own use.
- Microsoft says Copilot is covered by its existing GDPR and EU Data Boundary commitments, and that prompts, responses and data accessed through Microsoft Graph are not used to train foundation models. For EU customers, Copilot is an EU Data Boundary service. The Anthropic models offered inside Copilot are currently excluded from that boundary, so an administrator should decide whether to enable them.
- Google says Workspace does not use customer data to train models without the customer’s permission, and that Gemini retrieves only content the user already has access to.
- Anthropic says it does not train on inputs or outputs from its commercial products by default. Feedback a user chooses to send is the exception. Its Data Processing Addendum names the customer as controller and Anthropic as processor, with services in the EU provided by Anthropic Ireland Limited.
What does the Data Protection Commission expect?
The Data Protection Commission published guidance on AI, large language models and data protection on 18 July 2024. It says an organisation using an AI product that relies on personal data could be a data controller, “and if so a formal risk assessment should be considered”. It also asks you to understand what personal data the product uses, how it uses it and where that data goes when a third party is involved.
Four steps cover that before anyone gets a seat.
- Use company accounts. The commitments quoted above belong to the business plans. A personal account sits under a separate contract.
- Fix file sharing first. Copilot and Gemini return anything a user is allowed to open. A salary spreadsheet shared with the whole company will be found.
- Write down the risk assessment. Record which product, which data, which processor and which contract.
- Set a short staff policy. Say which client and personal data may be entered, and into which tool.
When is a licence not enough?
A licence reads what its connectors reach. It falls short when your documents sit in a practice-management package, a CRM or an old file server, when answers must come from an approved set of documents only, or when the people asking will never hold a Microsoft or Google seat. Our guide to seven processes Irish SMEs can automate covers the work that sits outside a chat window.
How Loco would approach the choice
We start with an AI consult that tests the licences you already pay for against your own documents and the questions your team asks most. If a licence answers them, we say so and help with permissions and policy. If it cannot, the consult produces a costed plan for a build, and every plan names the model provider, the processing region and who can see the data.
Our own studio runs this way. Client support email is sorted by rules, anything uncertain waits for a person, and an AI summary of every open project is written each morning. For clients, the work we have shipped is integration. Loco Digital designed and built the IPAV membership platform, launched in 2026, where the member directory stays synchronised with the Institute’s CRM, the kind of work our AI automation in Ireland page covers.
