ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini vs Grok vs Muse (October 2026)

There is no single winner in October 2026, but there is a clear shape. On independent testing, Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 leads, Meta's brand-new Muse Wonder Full is close behind, and OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra and Google's Gemini 4 Argon sit level just below. ChatGPT offers the most features in one app, Google AI Pro is the best-value bundle, Grok's new X Subscription is the cheapest way to get an AI assistant and a coding tool together, and Muse is built around Meta's apps. The right choice depends on the tools you already use and the work you do most, and this guide walks through every plan so you can decide.

What changed this autumn

If you read a comparison from the summer, it is out of date. Between 1 September and 13 October 2026, every major lab shipped a new flagship model or a new way to pay for one.

The five at a glance

Prices are US list prices per month, checked on 14 October 2026. Annual billing is cheaper on some plans, and app-store prices can differ.

Which is smartest? Independent test scores

Every launch post claims a win on some benchmark. Independent testing is more useful, because it runs every model through the same tests. Artificial Analysis combines tests of reasoning, knowledge, coding and agentic work into a single Intelligence Index.

Chart

Best model from each provider, independently tested

• Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic)58
• Muse Wonder Full (Meta)56
• GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI)53

  GPT-6.1 Sol scores 52 at a fraction of the cost.

• Gemini 4 Argon (Google)53
• Grok 4.7 (xAI)46
• MiMo-V2.6-Pro (Xiaomi)46

  The highest-scoring Chinese model on the index.

• Kimi K3 (Moonshot AI)44

  Open weights, so it can run on your own servers.

Show the data as a table

Model	Provider	Intelligence Index
Claude Opus 5.5 (max)	Anthropic	58
Muse Wonder Full (max)	Meta	56
GPT-6 Astra (max)	OpenAI	53
Gemini 4 Argon (high)	Google	53
Grok 4.7 (xhigh)	xAI	46
MiMo-V2.6-Pro	Xiaomi	46
Kimi K3 (max)	Moonshot AI	44

Three things stand out:

• Anthropic currently leads. Claude Opus 5.5 scores 58 and Sonnet 5.5 scores 56. Interestingly, Opus 5.5 scores above Claude Fable 5.1 on this index (53), even though Anthropic positions Fable as its most capable model and charges two and a half times as much for it through the API.
• Meta has arrived. Muse Wonder Full scores 56 in its first week, joint second. It is only available to Muse Code subscribers so far, and Meta has not yet published its full safety report.
• Grok is behind. Grok 4.7 scores 46, around ten points below the leaders and level with the best Chinese models.

What does the last few points cost?

Scores are only half of it. The chart below plots each model's score against what Artificial Analysis paid to run its tests, per task.

Chart

Score against cost: what you pay for the last few points

1. 1Claude Opus 5.5 (max): 58, $5.98
2. 2Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max): 56, $5.46
3. 3Claude Opus 5.5 (high): 54, $1.82
4. 4Gemini 4 Argon (high): 53, $1.99
5. 5GPT-6 Astra (max): 53, $3.26
6. 6Claude Fable 5.1 (max): 53, $7.63
7. 7GPT-6.1 Sol (max): 52, $0.72
8. 8Muse Wonder (max): 52, $4.52

The pattern is clear. GPT-6.1 Sol scores 52 for $0.72 a task. Gemini 4 Argon scores 53 for $1.99. Claude Opus 5.5 at its highest setting scores 58 but costs $5.98, while the same model on a lower setting scores 54 for $1.82. For a business running thousands of tasks a month, picking the right setting matters as much as picking the right model.

Vendor benchmarks still help with specific strengths. Google reports that Gemini 4 Argon is state of the art on LVBench, a long-video understanding test, at 91.7%, and leads Zapier's AutomationBench at 51.3%. Treat figures like these as the maker's own claims until independent tests confirm them.

ChatGPT (OpenAI): the all-rounder

Models. Since 7 October, ChatGPT's chat runs on GPT-6: GPT-6 Sol on paid plans and GPT-6 Luna on Free and Go. GPT-6 Astra, OpenAI's most capable model, powers the "Pro" reasoning option on Pro, Business and Enterprise plans. GPT-6.1 Sol, launched at OpenAI's DevDay on 29 September, comes close to Astra's performance and is available through ChatGPT Work, Codex and the API, with a context window of about 1.05 million tokens.

Features. ChatGPT has the broadest toolkit of the five: ChatGPT Work (an agent that completes multi-step tasks across connected apps and files, launched in July), Codex for coding, deep research, image creation, voice, memory, projects, custom GPTs and scheduled tasks.

Best for: anyone who wants one app that does a bit of everything, and teams already using custom GPTs. Go is the cheapest way into a capable assistant. Watch out for: the model you get depends on your plan, and Plus does not include Pro reasoning.

Claude (Anthropic): the leader on independent tests

Models. Anthropic released Claude Fable 5.1 on 1 September as its most capable model for coding and knowledge work, alongside Mythos 5.1, a version with fewer safeguards that is restricted to vetted cyber defenders and life scientists in the US. The new 5.5 family followed: Opus 5.5 on 22 September, which Anthropic says performs at Fable 5.1's level on most work, then Sonnet 5.5 and the small, fast Haiku 5.5, which has a one-million-token context window.

Features. Claude Code for coding, Cowork, research, memory, projects, connectors to your other apps, Claude in Chrome, and Claude for Microsoft 365 and Outlook.

Best for: demanding work where quality matters most, coding with Claude Code, and anyone working in Microsoft 365 or Chrome. Watch out for: Fable 5.1 is not fully included on Pro, and the Max plans are monthly only.

Gemini (Google): the best-value bundle

Models. Gemini 4 Argon, announced on 30 September, is Google's new frontier model. Google says it is strongest at real-world software engineering, legal and financial knowledge work and cybersecurity defence, and is "uniquely strong when knowledge work requires visual understanding": charts, long videos and documents read together. Google also raised its output limit to one million tokens, up from 64,000, which matters for very long reports and code. It reached AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app on 13 October.

Features. A tasks mode that keeps working while you are away, connections to more than 40 apps, Google's Antigravity coding agent inside the Mac app, Deep Think reasoning, video generation through Google Flow credits, NotebookLM, Gemini inside Gmail and Docs, and generous storage.

Best for: anyone who lives in Gmail, Docs and Drive, works with video or visuals, or wants storage and YouTube thrown in. Watch out for: Google cut the free plan back to Flash-Lite and removed the Pro model from AI Plus in October.

Grok (xAI): one subscription for AI, coding and X

Models. Grok 4.7 is xAI's flagship, which its documentation calls "the most capable model we've built", with a 500,000-token context window and a low API price.

The X Subscription. Launched on 12 October, it combines four products with one shared pool of AI usage across the Grok apps, the Grok tab on X and Cursor:

• Grok for chat, voice, and image and video generation.
• Grok Bot, "AI teammates" that keep working on cloud computers in the background and pause for your approval before sensitive actions such as sending, deleting or buying.
• Cursor, the coding agent tool, with local and cloud agents.
• X perks: the checkmark, creator tools, and fewer ads (none on the top tiers).

Premium, Super and Ultra are also sold per seat for teams, with single sign-on, admin controls and SOC 2 compliance. Existing SuperGrok, Cursor and X Premium subscribers can keep their old plans.

Best for: developers and creators who already use X and Cursor; the $30 tier replaces $90 of separate subscriptions. Watch out for: Grok 4.7 trails the leaders by about ten points on independent tests.

Muse (Meta): the newcomer built for agents

Models. On 12 October Meta released Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, which it calls its first frontier-class models, built for "personal and professional agentic tasks" such as insurance claims, lease reviews and finances. Muse Wonder is available to developers through the Meta Model API and Muse Code; Muse Wonder Full is for Muse Code subscribers. Meta says Muse Wonder will soon power the Muse app, starting with subscribers. Its full safety report is still to come.

The Muse app is Meta's personal agent, launched in September in the US and Canada. For businesses, Meta added connectors to Asana, Box, Canva, Dropbox, Figma, Granola, HighLevel, QuickBooks, Klaviyo, Lovable, Notion, Shopify, Slack, Stripe and Zoom, plus Facebook Pages, Instagram professional analytics and Meta ad accounts. Meta's promise is that "nothing publishes, sends, or spends without your approval."

Best for: businesses that run on Instagram, Facebook and Meta ads, in the US or Canada. Watch out for: it is brand new, Meta says subscriptions are still in limited testing, and it is not yet available everywhere.

Beyond the big five: open-weight and Chinese models

You do not have to rent a frontier model from one of five American companies. A growing set of models publish their weights, the trained model itself, so you can run them on your own servers. Most of the strongest are Chinese.

These sit roughly where Grok 4.7 does, about ten to fifteen points behind the leaders, at far lower running costs. The important distinction is how you use them. Running open weights on your own servers, or with a hosting provider in your own region, keeps your data where you put it. Using a Chinese company's own app or API is different: DeepSeek's privacy policy, for example, says it stores user data on servers in China, which rules it out for customer data at many businesses. Always read the licence too, because "open" does not always mean "free for commercial use at any size".

Which subscription for which job?

Subscriptions vs the API: where each one matters

A subscription is for people using the app. When you build something, such as a website chatbot, an AI agent or an automation, you use the API instead and pay per token, the unit AI is billed in (roughly three-quarters of a word). The price differences there are large, and they are where model choice saves real money.

Meta had not published Muse Wonder's API price in its launch post. Prices for very long prompts are higher on several models, so check each provider's page before you budget.

Data and privacy: the setting most businesses miss

The plan you choose decides who can use what you type. This is the part of the comparison that matters most for a business, and the one most comparisons skip.

The simple rule: personal plans for personal use, business plans the moment customer, staff or financial information is involved.

How Tamkoz uses each model

We do not resell any of these subscriptions, and we are not tied to one provider. When we build for a client, we choose the model for each job, usually the smallest one that does the job well, and keep the option to switch when prices or rankings change. Here is where each one earns its place in our work.

Claude (Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5). For AI agents and RAG knowledge bases, where the model has to read carefully, follow a procedure and say "I don't know" rather than guess, we reach for Opus 5.5 or Sonnet 5.5, on the lowest setting that passes our tests. Haiku 5.5 handles high-volume sorting and summarising, such as triaging inboxes or classifying invoices in AI document processing, at a tiny fraction of the cost.

OpenAI (GPT-6.1 Sol). At near-Astra performance for $2 and $10 per million tokens, GPT-6.1 Sol is a strong default for customer-facing work: AI customer service, website and WhatsApp assistants, and adding AI features to apps a client already runs through AI integration.

Gemini (Gemini 4 Argon and Flash). For clients who run on Google Workspace, we build automations around Gmail, Drive and Sheets with Gemini, and use Argon where a job involves charts, scanned pages or video. Many small teams also simply need help rolling out Gemini properly: settings, training and a usage policy, which is part of our AI consulting.

Grok (Grok 4.7). Its $2 and $6 pricing makes it a reasonable option for high-volume drafting and classification, and it is the natural choice when a client's customers talk on X. We would use it in AI lead generation work where speed and cost matter more than the last few points of quality.

Muse (Meta). For owners whose business runs through Instagram, Facebook and Meta ads in the US or Canada, Muse is worth setting up with clear approval rules. We can help connect it to Shopify, QuickBooks or Stripe, decide what it may do on its own, and train the team, through our AI consulting.

Open-weight models (Kimi K3, DeepSeek V4, gpt-oss). When a client's data must stay on their own servers, we can build a private RAG system on an open-weight model they host, with the trade-off in quality explained in writing up front.

And for every client: whichever assistant your customers use, it reads your website. Clear facts, prices and answers on your site are how you show up in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok answers, which is what our local and AI search work is for.

What we would do

For a typical small business, we would start with one plan at about $20 a month that matches the tools you already use: Google AI Pro if you live in Gmail and Drive, Claude Pro or ChatGPT Plus if you work in Microsoft 365, or Muse's free tier if your business runs on Instagram. Then:

1. Test before you commit. Take ten real tasks from last week, such as a customer email, a quote, a policy question and a spreadsheet, and run them through two assistants for a week.
2. Move to a business plan before anyone pastes in customer, staff or financial information.
3. Write a one-page usage policy: what may go in, what may not, and who checks the output.
4. Review every quarter. Seven major launches landed in the six weeks before this guide was written, and the next quarter will bring more.

When you are ready to go beyond chatting, our guides to AI agent examples and what RAG is show what these models can do when they are connected to your own tools and documents, and our method for choosing what to automate first helps you pick the first job.