Free AI Plans Compared: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok

Every AI company wants you on a paid plan, and every free plan is designed to show you just enough to want more. Before you pay for anything, it helps to know what the free tiers of Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok are actually good for, how their limits behave, and which one fits the work you do. Our team uses these tools every day for WordPress plugin development, support and content, and this guide is written from that practice.

Refreshed 18 October 2026. Free plans change often: models are swapped, limits move and features arrive or disappear without much notice. The first version of this article, from April 2026, listed specific message caps and model names; several of those have since changed. This version keeps only what we could confirm on the providers’ own pages on 18 October 2026, and tells you exactly what to check for everything else.

The short answer

Claude Free is the best free chat for reading and reasoning about code. On 18 October 2026 its pricing page listed Sonnet and Haiku models, web search, file creation and code running, and up to five projects, with usage measured over a rolling five-hour window rather than a fixed message count.
ChatGPT Free is the most familiar all-rounder for quick questions and drafting. Its free tier mixes a stronger model with tighter limits and a lighter model with looser ones; check its plan page for the current split.
Gemini through Google AI Studio is the strongest free option for developers happy to use an API key, because the Gemini API has a free tier with per-project rate limits. Google publishes the current limits on the AI Studio rate-limit page.
Grok Free is most useful as a research tool for what people are saying on X right now, rather than as a main coding assistant.
Use two free tools, not one. Pair a long-context chat (Claude) with a high-volume option (Gemini via AI Studio or ChatGPT’s lighter model) and you will rarely hit a wall.

How free AI plans really work

All four providers follow the same pattern, and understanding it matters more than any single number:

Limits are measured in usage, not messages. A short question costs less than pasting a whole plugin. Long conversations get more expensive as they go, because the model rereads everything each time.
Limits reset on a window. Claude’s pricing page describes a rolling five-hour window. Other services use their own windows; when you hit a limit, the message usually says when you can continue.
The best model is the most limited. Free plans often give a stronger model with a tight cap and a lighter model with a loose one. The lighter model is fine for boilerplate and weak on complex reasoning.
Features move between plans. Web search, file creation, code running and projects have all moved between free and paid tiers over the past year. Check the plan page rather than relying on an article, including this one.

Claude Free

What Anthropic’s pricing page showed on 18 October 2026:

Feature	Claude Free
Models	Sonnet and Haiku (Opus is on paid plans)
Usage	“No fixed message count”; usage resets on a rolling five-hour window
Projects	Up to 5
Web search	Included
Files and code	Can “search the web, create files, and run code”

Where Claude Free shines for WordPress work

Claude is strongest at reading a lot of code and explaining it. Paste a plugin’s main files and ask how a hook flows through it, where capability checks happen, or what a REST endpoint returns. These tasks need few messages and a lot of context, which suits the free tier. Projects let you keep one plugin’s files and your coding rules together, so you do not paste them every time.

Where it runs out

Long back-and-forth debugging uses the window quickly, because each reply rereads the whole conversation. For a bug that needs fifteen rounds, start a fresh conversation with a short summary every few rounds, or move quick follow-ups to another tool.

ChatGPT Free

ChatGPT’s free plan is the most widely used AI tool, and it is good at quick, everyday tasks: short explanations, drafting text, small code snippets. Its free tier has typically given access to a stronger model with a tighter limit and a lighter model with a looser one, switching to the lighter model when you run out.

What to check on the plan page

Which model the free tier uses by default, and what it falls back to
Whether file uploads, image generation and projects are included on free
Whether the free tier shows ads in your region
How the limit is described and when it resets

Where ChatGPT Free fits for WordPress work

Boilerplate: registering post types, settings pages, admin notices
Quick syntax questions and PHP function lookups
Changelog entries and readme text
Regular expressions and test data

For multi-file reasoning across a plugin, the lighter model’s weaker reasoning shows; switch to a long-context tool for those.

Gemini Free and Google AI Studio

Google offers two ways to use Gemini for free, and they behave differently:

The Gemini app (gemini.google.com) is the consumer chat, similar to ChatGPT and Claude.
Google AI Studio (aistudio.google.com) is the developer portal. It gives you an API key for the Gemini API, which has a free tier.

Google’s rate-limit documentation, read on 18 October 2026, says free-tier access needs an active project, that “rate limits are applied per project, not per API key”, that daily request quotas “reset at midnight Pacific time”, and that limits are “more restricted for experimental and preview models”. It points to the AI Studio rate-limit page for the current numbers per model, which change as models are released.

Why developers like AI Studio

Because it is an API, you can use it from scripts as well as the web interface: generating doc comments across a codebase, reviewing a diff from a Git hook, or summarising large log files. Gemini models are known for large context windows, which suits loading several plugin files and WordPress core files together. Check the model’s documentation for its exact context size and the AI Studio page for its free limits before you build a workflow on it.

Setting up AI Studio in five minutes

Go to aistudio.google.com and sign in with a Google account.
Create an API key in a project.
Use the key in the AI Studio web interface, or with any HTTP client or SDK.
Keep the key private: store it in an environment variable, never in a plugin’s code or a public repository.

Grok Free

xAI’s Grok is available free with an account and is distinctive for its access to posts on X. That makes it useful for a narrow but real job: finding out what developers are saying right now about a plugin conflict, a WordPress release or a security issue. Its free limits are tighter than a main coding assistant needs, so treat it as a research tool and do the actual coding elsewhere. Check xAI’s site for the current free model and limits.

Side-by-side: what each free tier is best for

	Claude Free	ChatGPT Free	Gemini via AI Studio	Grok Free
Best at	Reading and reasoning about a lot of code	Quick everyday questions and drafts	Scripted and high-volume developer tasks	Real-time research on X
How you use it	Chat, projects	Chat	Web interface or API key	Chat
Limits published?	Described as a rolling five-hour window, no fixed count	See plan page	Per project, on the AI Studio rate-limit page	See xAI’s site
Weak spot	Long debugging threads use the window fast	Lighter fallback model is weaker at complex code	Needs a few minutes of setup and key handling	Tight limits for coding

What these limits mean for plugin development

A typical debugging session goes like this: paste a failing endpoint, get a diagnosis, try the fix, paste the result, answer follow-up questions, repeat. That is eight to twelve exchanges for one bug, each rereading everything before it. That pattern is exactly what free tiers ration.

Three habits stretch any free tier much further:

Front-load context. Paste the relevant files and a clear description of the problem in the first message, then ask focused follow-ups. Fewer, richer messages beat many thin ones.
Restart long threads. When a conversation gets long, ask for a short summary, start a new chat with that summary, and continue. Each reply costs less.
Route tasks by tool. Send big-context reading to the tool with the largest context, quick lookups to the lightest model, and research to the tool with live data.

Practical task routing

Use Claude Free for

Explaining an unfamiliar plugin’s structure from its source
Reviewing capability checks, nonces and sanitisation in custom code
Tracing how a hook or filter flows through several files
Reviewing a pull request that spans several files

Use Gemini via AI Studio for

Generating doc comments across a whole codebase from a script
Automated review of diffs from a Git hook
Summarising large logs or database exports
Loading plugin and core files together to follow an execution path

Use ChatGPT Free for

Scaffolding: post types, admin pages, settings registration
Quick syntax and function questions
Readme and changelog text
Regular expressions and test data

Use Grok Free for

Checking whether others are reporting the same plugin conflict
Reading reactions to a new WordPress or PHP release
Seeing whether a dependency’s security issue is being discussed

A day of WordPress work on free plans only

To make this concrete, here is how a developer on our team could get through a normal day without paying for any AI plan:

Morning, a support ticket. A customer reports that a shortcode outputs nothing after an update. Paste the shortcode’s handler and the template it loads into Claude Free in one message, with the customer’s description. Ask where the output could be empty. Two or three exchanges usually find the cause.
Late morning, the fix. Write the fix yourself, then ask ChatGPT Free for a quick second look at the changed function and a changelog line. These are short, cheap requests that suit the lighter model.
After lunch, documentation. Run a small script against the Gemini API to draft doc comments for every public function in the files you touched. Review them before committing; generated comments are a starting point, not a final text.
Afternoon, a new feature. Start a fresh Claude conversation inside the plugin’s project, so its files and your coding rules are already loaded. Ask for an outline of the change across files before writing any code.
End of day, a release check. Ask Grok whether anyone is reporting problems with the WordPress or PHP version you are about to test against, then read the original reports it points to.

Nothing in that day is exotic. It works because each request goes to the tool whose free allowance fits it, and because the heavy context goes in once rather than in every message.

Free AI for the rest of a WordPress team

Developers are not the only people on a WordPress team who can use these tools for free:

Support staff can paste a customer’s question and the relevant documentation page and ask for a clear, friendly reply to edit. The answer must still be checked against the product; AI does not know your latest release.
Content writers can ask for outlines, alternative headings and plain-language rewrites of technical paragraphs. Final text and facts stay with the writer.
Project managers can turn meeting notes into task lists and summarise long client threads before a call.
Designers can describe a layout and ask for the matching block structure or CSS starting point.

The same rules apply to everyone: no customer data or secrets in the chat, and a human checks anything that reaches a customer.

Common mistakes on free AI plans

One endless conversation. Every new message rereads the whole thread, so a long conversation burns the allowance and the answers get worse. Start fresh with a summary.
Pasting the whole plugin for a one-line question. Large context helps for structural questions, not for “what does this function return”.
Trusting function names. AI tools sometimes invent WordPress functions or hooks that sound right. Check unfamiliar ones in the official developer reference before using them.
Relying on an old comparison table. Including the April version of this article. Check the plan page when it matters.
Using the lighter model for hard problems. When a free plan falls back to its lighter model, complex debugging quality drops. Wait for the window to reset or switch tools.

Context matters more than message counts

Message limits get the attention because they are easy to count, but for plugin work the amount of code a model can hold at once often matters more. A mid-size plugin runs to thousands of lines across many files. To reason about how a function in one file affects a check in another, the model needs both in front of it. A tool with plenty of messages and a small context forces you to split questions and keep re-explaining the codebase, which wastes the messages you have. A tool with a large context lets you load everything once and ask sharp questions.

That is why we pair tools: a long-context tool for understanding, and a high-volume tool for the many small tasks around it.

Keep your code and clients safe on free plans

Read the data terms. Free and paid plans can differ in how conversations are used to improve models. Check each provider’s settings and turn off training on your data where that option exists.
Never paste secrets. API keys, licence keys, passwords and customer data do not belong in any AI chat. Replace them with placeholders.
Be careful with client code. If a client contract restricts sharing their code, follow it, whatever the tool’s terms say.
Review everything. AI-written code needs the same review as any other code: security checks, escaping, capability checks and tests.

When free stops being enough

Free tiers are good for learning, research and light use. Once you are billing clients for AI-assisted work, waiting for a limit to reset costs more than a subscription. At that point the real question is not free or paid, but which paid plan for which tasks. Our comparison of $20 AI subscriptions for WordPress developers covers that decision, and our post on ChatGPT Projects vs Claude Projects covers keeping client work organised once you do pay.

For teams, the step after individual subscriptions is building AI into the workflow itself: shared instructions, tools connected to your repositories and support desk, and checks before anything ships. That is how our own team works, and it is the subject of our post on Claude Code and Git across 100+ repositories.

How to check any free plan in ten minutes

Open the provider’s pricing or plans page and note the free models, features and how limits are described.
Paste one real file from a plugin you know well and ask it to explain the file. Judge the answer, not the marketing.
Ask one follow-up that needs a second file. See whether it keeps track.
Note when it tells you that you have reached a limit, and what it offers then.
Check the privacy settings for training on your conversations.

Ten minutes of your own test tells you more than any comparison table, because it uses your code and your way of working.

Should you pay for one plan or use several free ones?

For a solo developer doing a few hours of AI-assisted work a week, combining free plans is usually enough. The signs that one paid plan is now cheaper than juggling several free ones:

You hit a limit most working days, and waiting breaks your flow.
You keep re-explaining the same codebase because conversations reset.
Client work needs clearer data controls than the free plans give.
You want the strongest model for hard problems, not the fallback.
Several people on the team need the same shared instructions and files.

If two or more of these apply, pick the paid plan that matches the task you do most. For most of our developers that is a long-context coding assistant; for writers and support staff it may be a different tool. Paying for one well-chosen plan and keeping the others free is a common, sensible middle ground.

What we tell clients who ask about AI tools

Clients often ask whether their own team should use AI for the site we build and maintain for them. Our answer is yes, for the right jobs: drafting content, answering routine questions, summarising reports. We set the boundaries in the handover: which tasks suit AI, where a person must check the result, and what must never go into a chat. When AI is part of the site itself, such as a support assistant or content tools, we build it into the platform with proper data handling rather than relying on someone’s free account.

Frequently asked questions

Which free AI is best for coding?

For reading and reasoning about a lot of code, Claude Free. For high-volume or scripted developer tasks, Gemini through Google AI Studio. For quick everyday snippets, ChatGPT Free. Most developers do best combining two of them.

Does Claude Free have message limits?

Anthropic’s pricing page says there is no fixed message count; usage resets on a rolling five-hour window. Long conversations and large pasted files use the allowance faster.

Is the Gemini API really free?

The Gemini API has a free tier for projects created in Google AI Studio, with rate limits per project that reset daily at midnight Pacific time. Google lists current limits per model on the AI Studio rate-limit page.

Can I use free AI for client work?

Technically yes, but check each provider’s data terms and your client contract first, never paste secrets or customer data, and review all generated code. For regular client work, a paid plan with clearer data controls is usually worth it.

Why do the limits feel different from day to day?

Because they measure usage, not messages. A day of long conversations with big files uses far more than a day of short questions.

Will these free plans change again?

Almost certainly. That is why this article tells you what to check rather than promising numbers that may be out of date next month.

Free AI Plans Compared: What Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok Give You for $0