SemiAnalysis measures a $200 Claude plan at about 5x the API value of a $200 ChatGPT plan

For most of the past year, developers choosing between a $200 Claude plan and a $200 ChatGPT plan picked ChatGPT for the volume. A firm that limit-tests subscription plans says the Claude plan now gives you more.

SemiAnalysis published the measurement on 5 October 2026, after limit-testing every plan from Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, SpaceXAI, MiniMax, Moonshot, Z.ai, Cursor and Cognition. The firm says a $200 Claude plan running Opus 5.5 delivers around five times the API-equivalent value of a $200 ChatGPT plan running GPT 6.1 Sol. Both of those are the model each company recommends for most users. Last week OpenAI halved the API-equivalent value of its $200 plan and added a new $500 tier.

How the measurement works

SemiAnalysis says its method sends calls that isolate one token type at a time, watches the meter the provider shows, and records how many tokens of each type passed between meter moves. Input, cache writes, cache reads and output each get their own measured rate, and the firm converts those rates into tokens per window and then into a dollar value at the provider's own API prices.

The firm says the method is sensitive enough that it caught a small A/B test one provider was running. Three accounts on the same plan, one of them older than the other two, had about 20 percent lower limits. SemiAnalysis says the provider confirmed the test and said it was not cutting limits wholesale but testing how to balance when users hit them.

The headline comparison

For a $200 plan at the mid-tier model, SemiAnalysis reports Anthropic offers "an overwhelmingly better deal", at about five times the API-equivalent value across the board. On flagship models, the firm says a $200 Claude plan still has 50 percent of its limit left after a user has consumed $2,485 of Fable 5.1, because Fable can only draw on half the limit; a $200 ChatGPT plan is fully exhausted after $2,897 of Astra. Switching from API-equivalent dollars to raw token counts does not close the gap at the mid-tier.

What changed last week

OpenAI's halving of the $200 plan took effect for newly purchased subscriptions immediately, and existing $200 plans keep the old higher limits until 29 October. The firm says the new $500 plan offers 21 percent more Astra than the old $200 plan did, and the API-equivalent value for Sol-class models on the $500 plan is actually lower than before, because OpenAI also cut cached input token pricing for GPT 6.1 Sol. The 300 TPS "Ultrafast" option is the headline feature of the $500 plan, and SemiAnalysis says its limit tests on that are still running.

For a team paying for several seats, these are the kinds of changes a budget assumes will not happen. SemiAnalysis notes that providers can and do adjust credit costs silently, and that labs did not raise token limits enough to fully offset their own recent price cuts. The practical move is to re-check the cost of each plan, model and token type on a schedule, since the deal a seat was bought on may not be the deal it is on today.

Source

Megalaa, Kan and Patel, Anthropic Subscriptions Offer 5x+ More Value Than OpenAI, SemiAnalysis, 5 October 2026 (newsletter, paid tier for the full dashboard).