Four mainstream assistants — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot — can carry the drafting, summarising, research and reply work that fills most of a solo working day, and all four offer a free tier to start on. What they cannot carry is the part that makes you the business: choosing your legal form, filing your taxes, and signing things off.
Everything below describes what the vendors say about their own products on their pricing pages, checked on 1 October 2026. Where a page does not state something — most notably ChatGPT's plan prices — this article says so rather than filling the gap.
What each vendor says its assistant does
| Assistant | What the vendor page describes | Starting tier |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT (OpenAI) | Free plan includes unlimited text chats subject to abuse guardrails, with limited messages with uploads, limited image creation and deep research | Free |
| Claude (Anthropic) | Free tier: chat on web, desktop and mobile, search the web, create files and run code | Free ($0) |
| Gemini (Google) | Described as your personal, proactive and powerful AI assistant | A$0/month with a Google Account (Australian page, AUD) |
| Microsoft Copilot | A secure AI assistant for work and life, available inside Microsoft 365 apps including Word, Excel and PowerPoint | Microsoft 365 Personal at $9.99/month |
The pattern across all four is text and files in, text and files out. That is exactly the shape of most solo admin work, which is why the split below matters more than any feature list.
Drafting emails and proposals
This is the strongest fit. A first draft of a proposal, a follow-up email or a scope note is text work with a predictable structure, and an assistant produces it faster than you can type it.
What still needs you is anything that becomes a promise: price, delivery date, refund terms, scope boundaries. A draft you have not read is a commitment you did not make, and it is your name on the message, not the tool's.
Summarising
Long threads, meeting notes, a contract you have already signed, a research dump — condensing these is a mechanical reading task and a reasonable thing to hand off. Keep the original: the summary is only useful if you can check it against the source the moment something in it matters.
Research
ChatGPT's free plan lists deep research among what you can do, and Claude's free tier includes searching the web. Google describes Gemini as a personal assistant, and Microsoft places Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook through Microsoft 365.
Treat output as a starting point for your own checking, particularly for anything legal or tax-related, where the correct answer depends on which country you are registered in. No page among these four claims its assistant gives jurisdiction-specific legal or tax advice.
Bookkeeping help
None of the four pricing pages describes bookkeeping, invoicing or accounting features. If a tool helps you word an invoice note or tidy a spreadsheet, that is drafting help, not bookkeeping. The figures you file, and the deadline you file them by, are yours.
Customer replies
Drafting replies is drafting, and it is worth handing over the repetitive ones. Two categories should not go out on an assistant's wording alone: anything about money back, and anything admitting or denying fault. Both can become contractual or legal positions, and both read differently across jurisdictions.
The decisions that stay with you
Three things do not transfer, regardless of which assistant or plan you use:
- Legal form. Which structure you operate under, in which country, and what that means for your liability.
- Tax. Registration, filings, rates and deadlines, all of which are set by the country you are in.
- Sign-off. Anything with your name on it that a client, supplier or authority can hold you to.
An assistant can draft the document. It cannot be the person who is accountable for it.
What the plans cost, exactly as the pages print them
| Plan | Price as printed | Currency note from the page |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT Free | Free | Prices for Go, Plus and Pro did not render on the fetched page |
| Claude Pro | $17 per month with annual discount ($200 billed up front), or $20 billed monthly, excluding applicable tax | Page shows "$" without an explicit currency label; the Enterprise line says US$ |
| Claude Team (2 to 150) | Standard seat $20 per seat/month billed annually, $25 billed monthly | Same unlabelled currency |
| Claude Max | From $100 per month | Same unlabelled currency |
| Gemini app free tier | A$0/month with a Google Account | Australian page, prices in AUD |
| Google AI Plus | A$7.99/month | Australian page, prices in AUD |
| Google AI Pro | A$32.99/month (4x higher usage than free, 5 TB storage) | Australian page, prices in AUD |
| Google AI Ultra | From A$149.99/month | Australian page, prices in AUD |
| Microsoft 365 Personal | $9.99/month, includes Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook and 1 TB storage | en-us page, USD-style "$"; when fetched from Australia it also displayed "This product is not available in your market." |
| Microsoft 365 Family | $12.99/month | Same page and same market note |
Because the pages were fetched from Australia, the Gemini figures are Australian dollars and the Microsoft figures are printed on a US page that flagged itself as unavailable in that market. Check your own local page before treating any of these as your price.
What the official pages do not state
- ChatGPT's Go, Plus and Pro prices did not render in the page text, so no ChatGPT price is given here.
- Claude's Pro, Team and Max amounts appear as "$" without a currency label, with US$ only on the Enterprise line.
- Google's page served Australian AUD prices; US prices were not observed.
- Microsoft's Copilot Pro standalone price was not captured, and the en-us page displayed a market-unavailable notice when fetched from Australia.
For a one-person company, the useful conclusion is not which assistant ranks first. It is that the free tiers of all four let you test the jobs above at no cost, and the paid tiers only become worth comparing once you know which of those jobs actually eats your week.