Google AI Ultra vs Claude Max vs ChatGPT Pro: Which $100 or $200 Plan for Developers?

The short answer: if most of your day happens inside a coding agent, buy the plan that owns the agent you already use. Claude Max for Claude Code, ChatGPT Pro for Codex, Google AI Ultra for Antigravity. All three now sell a $100 tier with roughly 5x their base plan's usage and a $200 tier with roughly 20x, so the price no longer separates them. The agent, the flagship model and the extras do.

Google made this a three-way race at I/O on May 19, 2026. It added a $99.99 AI Ultra tier and cut the top Ultra plan from $249.99 to $199.99. A lot of comparison pages still list Ultra at $250. That price is gone.

This guide was last checked against Google's Gemini Apps help center, the Google One AI plans page, the Antigravity blog and pricing page, the Google Developers Blog, Claude's pricing page and help center, OpenAI's Codex pricing docs and TechCrunch's reporting on the Pro pause on September 24, 2026.

Quick summary

• Same multipliers everywhere. Google AI Ultra, Claude Max and ChatGPT Pro all come in a ~5x tier at $100 and a ~20x tier at $200, measured against each vendor's $20 plan. The $200 tier costs twice as much and gives four times the usage in all three cases.
• Claude Max is the pick for Claude Code users. Opus 5.5 runs inside the plan limits, and Max is the only Claude plan where Fable 5.1 is included (up to 50% of your weekly limit).
• ChatGPT Pro is the pick for Codex users. It has the clearest published limits: GPT-6 Astra in Codex is estimated at 25–225 local messages per five hours on Pro $100 and 100–900 on Pro $200. New sign-ups for Pro $200 have been paused since September 10, 2026.
• Google AI Ultra is the pick if you live in Google's tools or want the bundle. Even the $99.99 tier comes with 20 TB of storage, YouTube Premium, $40 a month in Google Cloud credits and 10,000 Flow credits. Deep Think is Ultra-only.
• Gemini CLI is gone for consumer plans. It stopped serving free, Pro and Ultra users on June 18, 2026. The terminal agent on Google plans is now Antigravity CLI (agy).

The master table: the three $100 tiers

The master table: the three $200 tiers

Two notes on these tables. First, the $200 tiers mostly buy more room. The models, agents and features stay the same as at $100. Second, Google's own pages describe Ultra storage as "20 TB and above" without saying what the $200 tier gets. Several third-party trackers say 30 TB. I have not been able to confirm that on a Google page.

All three vendors price the $200 tier at 2x the $100 tier for 4x the usage.

What the multipliers actually mean

All three vendors describe limits as multiples of a smaller plan. They measure them in different ways, and those differences matter more than the headline numbers.

Google: compute-based, 5-hour refresh, weekly ceiling

The Gemini Apps help center says AI Plus gets 2x the standard (free) limits, AI Pro gets 4x, and AI Ultra gets "5x or 20x higher than AI Pro limits depending on your subscription." Your allowance refreshes every five hours until you reach a weekly limit. Google does not publish absolute prompt counts. AI Pro and Ultra both get a 1 million token context window in the Gemini app.

Antigravity works a little differently. After the May 19 plan changes, Gemini Flash and Gemini Pro share one token quota that is "drawn down as per API pricing," so a Pro-model call uses more of it than a Flash call. The $100 Ultra tier gets 5x the Pro plan's token quota and the $200 tier gets 20x. Non-Gemini models have their own fixed rate limits, which Google attributes to capacity constraints. The Antigravity pricing page lists Claude Sonnet and Opus 4.6 and gpt-oss-120b alongside Gemini 3.8 Flash and Gemini 3.1 Pro. AI credits no longer come with the base plans and now work only as paid overage.

In short, Ultra buys a lot of Gemini capacity. It does not buy a lot of Claude capacity inside Antigravity. If you want Claude models, pay Anthropic directly.

Anthropic: per-session multiples plus weekly caps

Claude's pricing page lists Max "from $100/month," with 5x or 20x more usage than Pro in each five-hour session and weekly caps on top. When Opus 5.5 launched on September 22, Anthropic's developer account said Claude Code's 5-hour session limits were going up 20% and that Opus 5.5 would go about 25% further within those limits because it is cheaper to run. Anthropic's Fable help article says Max plans include Fable 5 and Fable 5.1 for up to 50% of weekly limits. On Pro, Fable runs only on paid usage credits.

For the full breakdown, see Claude Max $100 vs $200 for Claude Code and our new Claude Pro vs Max after Opus 5.5 guide.

OpenAI: the only vendor with per-model numbers

OpenAI's Codex pricing docs publish estimated local-message ranges per five hours, and local messages and cloud chats share one allowance:

Weekly limits "may also apply." The ranges are wide because a long agentic turn over a big repo costs much more than a quick edit. More detail is in ChatGPT Pro $100 vs $200 explained and our new Codex and GPT-6 limits by ChatGPT plan.

The ChatGPT Pro $200 pause

On September 10, 2026, OpenAI paused new sign-ups and upgrades to Pro $200 (Pro 20x), including upgrades from Pro $100. TechCrunch reported that demand for GPT-6 Astra, launched September 3, was straining capacity. Existing Pro $200 subscribers keep the plan, and Pro $100 is open. OpenAI has not said when sign-ups will reopen.

This changes what you can actually buy. As of today, if you want 20x of a frontier coding agent and don't already have Pro $200, your options are Claude Max 20x or Google AI Ultra at $199.99.

Deep reasoning: Deep Think vs Fable vs Pro reasoning

Each vendor keeps a slower, more expensive mode for its top tiers:

• Google Deep Think is Ultra-only, on both the $100 and $200 tiers. Google describes it as "maximum parallel reasoning" and says it can take a few minutes to respond. It lives in the Gemini app, not the coding agent. Gemini 3.5 Pro, announced at I/O, was still unreleased as of late-August reporting. A newer Deep Think probably depends on it, so today's Ultra gets you Deep Think on current models.
• Claude Fable 5.1 is included on both Max tiers up to half your weekly limit and uses that limit faster than other Claude models. Opus 5.5, according to Anthropic's launch messaging, performs at Fable 5.1's level for less. Many Claude Code users will leave it as the default and save Fable for hard problems.
• ChatGPT Pro reasoning and GPT-6 Astra are included on both Pro tiers.

For a head-to-head on model quality, see GPT-6 Astra vs Claude Fable 5.1 vs Opus 5.5 for coding.

Per-dollar value

On paper, all three price the step the same way. $100 buys 5x and $200 buys 20x, so the $200 tier costs half as much per unit of usage. If you run out of the $100 tier by midweek, the $200 tier is better value than buying extra usage. That holds for all three.

The multipliers are measured against different baselines, though, so "5x" doesn't mean the same amount across vendors:

• Google's 5x is 5x AI Pro, which is already 4x the free tier.
• Anthropic's 5x is 5x Claude Pro per session, with weekly caps on top.
• OpenAI's 5x is 5x Plus, and it is the only one you can check in messages.

The bundle is where Google stands apart. List price on YouTube Premium Individual plus $40 a month in Cloud credits is a real chunk of the $99.99, before you count 20 TB of storage. If you already pay for YouTube Premium and a big Google One storage plan, the effective price of Ultra's AI is well under $100. If you'd never use any of it, the bundle doesn't matter.

Google AI Ultra vs Pro: is the jump worth it?

Google AI Pro costs $19.99 a month. For that you get 4x the standard Gemini limits, 5 TB of storage, YouTube Premium Lite, $10 a month in Cloud credits, 1,000 Flow credits and "higher" Antigravity rate limits. The $99.99 Ultra tier adds 5x Pro's limits, Deep Think, full YouTube Premium, 20 TB of storage, $40 in Cloud credits and 10,000 Flow credits.

Upgrade when Antigravity or agy keeps hitting the weekly ceiling, or when you need Deep Think. Before May, the only step up from Pro was $249.99. Now it's $99.99, so most people should try that tier before the $199.99 one.

Google AI Pro vs Claude Pro

At about $20 each, these two are closer than the premium tiers. Claude Pro ($20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually) includes Claude Code with Opus 5.5 and Sonnet, but not Fable 5.1 except through usage credits. Google AI Pro includes Antigravity and agy with Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.1 Pro, a 1M-token context window in the Gemini app, and the storage and YouTube extras. If terminal coding is the main job, pick by agent: Claude Code or Antigravity. If you want the most for $20 overall, Google AI Pro has the bigger bundle.

Which plan should you pick?

You already use Claude Code every day

Claude Max 5x ($100), then Max 20x if you hit weekly caps. Opus 5.5 raised the effective session allowance, so check whether 5x is enough before upgrading. Antigravity lists Claude models, but on a separate, tighter quota, so Google Ultra doesn't replace a Max plan for this use.

You already use Codex

ChatGPT Pro $100. It is the only Pro tier you can newly buy right now, and at 25–225 Astra messages per five hours it covers most solo developers. If you already have Pro $200, keep it. A downgrade during the pause is hard to undo, and OpenAI's one-time return window is limited to people who had Pro $200 access around September 10.

You work mostly in Google's tools, or want Antigravity

Google AI Ultra $99.99. You get Antigravity 2.0 and agy with 5x Pro's Gemini quota, Deep Think, and a bundle that effectively pays for part of the plan. Move to $199.99 only if the weekly ceiling actually gets in your way. Gemini CLI users on consumer plans had to move to agy in June whatever they chose. See our coding-agent CLIs comparison for how it stacks up.

You want more than one frontier model

Split $100 + $100. Claude Max 5x plus ChatGPT Pro $100 costs the same as one $200 plan and covers both main terminal agents. Add Google AI Pro at $19.99 if you want Antigravity and Gemini on the side. We made the full case in ChatGPT Pro vs Claude Max at $200. A split works well when one agent reviews the other's work, and badly when you'd rather have one very deep allowance.

For the wider field, including Cursor Ultra, see Cursor Ultra vs Claude Max 20x vs ChatGPT Pro and the $6–$300 decision matrix for solo developers.

Caveats

• None of these limits are fixed. All three vendors change them without much notice, and weekly caps are applied at the vendor's discretion.
• Google and Anthropic publish multiples, not counts. Only OpenAI gives per-model message estimates, and even those are wide ranges.
• Jules limits aren't published. Google says Pro gets "expanded" and Ultra gets "higher" task and concurrency limits, with no numbers.
• Gemini's next Pro model is late. If Gemini 3.5 Pro ships, Ultra's value moves with it. Our Gemini 3.7 Flash coverage covers the delay.
• Prices are US list prices before tax. Regional pricing differs a lot. India, for example, has its own rupee tiers.

FAQ

Google AI Ultra vs Claude Max vs ChatGPT Pro: which is best for developers?

It depends on your agent. Claude Max for Claude Code, ChatGPT Pro for Codex, Google AI Ultra for Antigravity. All three have a ~5x tier at $100 and a ~20x tier at $200. ChatGPT Pro $200 is closed to new sign-ups as of September 2026.

How much does Google AI Ultra cost now?

$99.99 a month for the 5x tier and $199.99 a month for the 20x tier in the US. Google cut the top tier from $249.99 at I/O on May 19, 2026. Pages quoting $250 are out of date.

Google AI Ultra vs Claude Max 20x: which gives more coding usage for $200?

Neither vendor publishes absolute numbers, so there is no exact answer. Ultra $199.99 gives 20x AI Pro's Gemini token quota in Antigravity. Claude Max 20x gives 20x Claude Pro per session in Claude Code, with weekly caps. Choose based on which models you want to run.

What are Antigravity's pricing and limits?

Antigravity has a free individual tier with basic weekly limits. On paid plans, AI Pro ($19.99) is the baseline, Ultra $99.99 gets 5x Pro's token quota and Ultra $199.99 gets 20x. Gemini models share one quota drawn down at API prices. Non-Gemini models such as Claude have a separate fixed limit.

Is Deep Think included in the $100 Google AI Ultra plan?

Yes. Google says Deep Think is exclusive to AI Ultra and applies the same Ultra feature set to both tiers. Only the usage multiplier and bundle size differ.

Does Gemini CLI still work with Google AI Pro or Ultra?

No. Gemini CLI stopped serving free, AI Pro and AI Ultra users on June 18, 2026. Google replaced it with Antigravity CLI (agy). Enterprise Standard and Enterprise licenses and paid API keys are unaffected.