Microsoft Copilot is no longer only Claude's rival. On work accounts it runs Claude: Anthropic's models are on by default for most business tenants outside Europe and the UK, and Copilot's Cowork agent launched on them. So the real choice is Claude straight from Anthropic, or Claude and others inside Microsoft 365, next to your mail and files.
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Pick Claude if you pay for AI yourself, your work is long writing, analysis or code, and you want one $20 plan that covers chat, the Excel, Word and PowerPoint add-ins and Claude Code.
Pick Microsoft Copilot if your employer already pays for Microsoft 365 Copilot, because unless your admin switched them off, Claude's models are already in it, next to your mail, calendar and SharePoint, at no cost to you.
Pick neither if your employer bars outside AI tools and has bought no Copilot licence, because a personal plan of either one used on work files is a policy breach that no $20 of convenience covers. Ask IT for a seat first.
prices checked 2026-10-13 · by dan scutaru
| Claude | Microsoft Copilot | |
|---|---|---|
| price | free tier · from $20/mo | free tier · from $9.99/mo |
| free tier | Chat, web search, file creation, code execution, memory and up to 5 projects, on Sonnet and Haiku, with a rolling five-hour usage window. No Claude Code, no Research, no Opus or Fable models, no image generation. | Chat with web search, image creation and file uploads, "subject to available capacity and limits". Microsoft publishes no counts. No sign-in needed for basic chat; users without a Microsoft 365 subscription may see ads. |
| runs on | web, ios, android, mac, windows, linux | web, ios, android, mac, windows |
| the plan for a team | Team: $25 a seat monthly, or $20 billed yearly. 2 to 150 seats. | Microsoft 365 Copilot: $21 a user a month yearly for up to 300 users, $30 for larger organizations, on top of a Microsoft 365 plan. |
| inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook | Add-ins on every paid plan, Mac and Windows. Outlook is in beta and only drafts. | Built in from Microsoft 365 Personal ($9.99). On Family, only the owner gets it. |
| whose models | Anthropic's own. Fable 5 and 5.1 sit outside Pro's limits, on usage credits. | Work: OpenAI and Anthropic, Claude on by default outside the EU, EFTA and UK. Personal: Microsoft names none. |
| usage limits | No counts. Five-hour session plus a weekly limit, shared by chat, desktop and Claude Code. | No counts. Researcher, Analyst and Cowork only from Premium ($19.99) up. |
On a work or school account, Copilot already runs Claude. Microsoft lists Anthropic as a subprocessor and switches its models on by default for most commercial tenants. In the EU, EFTA and UK an admin has to opt in. You can pick Claude in Researcher and when editing in the Office apps, and Copilot Cowork launched on Anthropic models.
What differs from Claude itself: your admin decides which models you get, and for most of them Microsoft's terms apply, not Anthropic's. For personal Microsoft accounts we found no Microsoft page naming the model.
There is no Copilot-only plan any more. At home it comes with Microsoft 365: Personal $9.99 a month, Family $12.99, Premium $19.99, Pro $99.99. Researcher, Analyst and Cowork start at Premium. Claude Pro is $20, Max $100 or $200.
At work, Microsoft 365 Copilot is $21 per user per month paid yearly for businesses up to 300 users, or $30 for larger organizations, on top of a Microsoft 365 plan, and Cowork bills usage in credits at $0.01 each. Claude Team is $25 a seat monthly or $20 billed yearly.
Both now work inside the workbook, so the difference is reach. Claude for Excel is an add-in on every paid Claude plan and works across the Excel, Word and PowerPoint files you have open. Copilot in Excel comes with Microsoft 365 from the $9.99 plan.
The twist: Anthropic says Microsoft 365 Copilot customers can use Claude models inside Excel and PowerPoint. If your company pays for Copilot, try Claude there before paying twice. We publish no accuracy test; give both the same messy workbook.
We read Hacker News, not Reddit. At work the complaint runs one way: people used Claude on their own, then joined a company where "they only allow copilot", and call it a step down.
The other side is practical. One commenter said work pays, so they "use Opus in M365 Copilot" instead of buying Claude. Few people choose Copilot as a chatbot; it comes with the job. Few pay for Claude unless the job is writing, analysis or code.
For long writing, analysis and code you pay for yourself, usually yes: one $20 plan covers chat, the Office add-ins and Claude Code. For work that lives in Outlook, Teams and SharePoint, Copilot sees more. And many work accounts can run Claude inside Copilot, so the difference is often the wrapper, not the model.
No, but they share an engine. Microsoft built Copilot Cowork with Anthropic, and at general release it ran on Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 4.6. At work it needs a Copilot licence plus usage credits; on personal accounts it is a preview on Premium and Pro, US and Canada only.
No. Microsoft stopped selling Copilot Pro and ended support on August 1, 2026. Higher limits now come with Microsoft 365; Premium at $19.99 is the nearest match to Claude Pro.
Not Microsoft Copilot, which is an assistant. The coding product is GitHub Copilot, a separate subscription from $10 a month, while Claude Pro includes Claude Code. We compare those two on their own page.
Yes, with limits Microsoft does not publish: chat, web search, image creation and file uploads, subject to capacity. Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook needs Microsoft 365 Personal or higher. The full answer →