Copilot vs ChatGPT for work
Copilot lives inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams and is grounded in your Microsoft 365 data; it requires a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan. ChatGPT Business is a standalone workspace that connects to Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack and GitHub, with a 2-seat minimum.
Summary based on the sourced facts below, checked 2026-10-18.
| Feature | Microsoft 365 Copilot Business (add-on) | Microsoft 365 Copilot (Enterprise) | ChatGPT Business |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price (annual billing) | $21.00 list; shown as $18.00 promotional, per user/month, paid yearly [source] | $30.00 per user/month, paid yearly [source] | Standard seat $20, Premium seat $100 per user/month, billed annually [source] |
| Price (monthly billing) | $25.20 per user/month (monthly subscription) [source] | $31.50 per user/month paid monthly (annual commitment) [source] | Standard seat $25, Premium seat $125 per user/month [source] |
| Seats / limits | Up to 300 seats per tenant; no minimum stated [source] | Not published in current Microsoft docs (Microsoft's January 2024 announcement said no seat minimum) [source] | 2 paid seats minimum; for teams of 2-200 [source] |
| Requirements | A qualifying Microsoft 365 business or enterprise plan [source] | A qualifying Microsoft 365 enterprise plan [source] | Standalone (no other suite required) [source] |
| Usage limits | Unknown — not verified | Unknown — not verified | Standard has included limits incl. a 5-hour limit; Premium has 5x usage and no 5-hour limit; workspace credits extend usage [source] |
| Meetings | Copilot in Teams [source] | Copilot in Teams; Facilitator agent for meetings [source] | Unknown — not verified |
| Documents | Copilot in Word and PowerPoint [source] | Copilot in Word, PowerPoint; Copilot Pages and Notebooks [source] | ChatGPT Work, Space pages; Word/PowerPoint extensions (per plan table) [source] |
| Spreadsheets | Copilot in Excel [source] | Copilot in Excel; Analyst agent [source] | Data analysis; Excel and Google Sheets extensions [source] |
| Copilot in Outlook [source] | Prioritize inbox, summarize threads in Outlook [source] | Unknown — not verified | |
| Agents | Pre-built Researcher, Analyst and Facilitator agents [source] | Researcher, Analyst, Agent Store, custom agents via Copilot Studio [source] | Workspace agents; ChatGPT Work; Codex; Dots on Premium seats [source] |
| Connectors / grounding | Work IQ grounding on Microsoft 365 data plus Copilot connectors [source] | 100+ connectors for AI search across line-of-business data [source] | Google Workspace, Slack, GitHub, Microsoft 365 and more [source] |
| Context window | Not published on Microsoft's Copilot Business page [source] | Not published on Microsoft's Copilot Enterprise page [source] | GPT Instant 54K total context; GPT Reasoning 256K total (~320 pages of input) [source] |
| Data & training terms | Data not used to train foundation models (Microsoft enterprise page) [source] | Encrypted, tenant-isolated, not used to train foundation models [source] | No training on your business data by default [source] |
| Admin & compliance | Adoption/usage analytics; inherits Microsoft 365 security and compliance [source] | SharePoint Advanced Management, Copilot Analytics, EU Data Boundary, ISO/IEC 27018, GDPR [source] | SAML SSO, MFA, centralized billing, usage analytics, spend controls [source] |
Still unsure? Try the which-should-my-team-buy picker.