If your business runs on Microsoft 365, you've probably seen Copilot pop up in Word and Outlook. Meanwhile half your team already uses ChatGPT on their own. So which one should you actually pay for?
The short answer
- Pick Copilot if your work lives in Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and SharePoint, and you want AI that can see those files and meetings.
- Pick ChatGPT if you want the more flexible general assistant for writing, research and analysis, and your files live in a mix of places.
- Some teams use both. Copilot for inbox and meeting work, ChatGPT for drafting and thinking.
What Copilot does best
Copilot's advantage is that it's built into Microsoft 365. It can summarize a Teams meeting you missed, draft a reply using the thread in Outlook, or pull numbers from a spreadsheet in your SharePoint without copying and pasting.
Microsoft lists Microsoft 365 Copilot Business at $18 per user per month on a yearly plan, or $25.20 month to month, as an add-on to a Microsoft 365 plan. Copilot Chat is included at no extra cost with eligible Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
What ChatGPT does best
ChatGPT is the stronger all-rounder. It's good at long drafts, research, working through a spreadsheet you upload, and building shared assistants that know your services and tone. It connects to many apps, not just Microsoft's.
ChatGPT Business is sold per user with a two-user minimum, and OpenAI says your business data is never used for training.
How to decide in a week
- Pick three real tasks your team does every week.
- Have two or three people try each tool on those tasks for a week.
- Compare time saved and how much editing the output needed.
The winner is usually obvious by Friday.
The part that matters more than the tool
Whichever you choose, the payoff comes from setup and training: shared assistants loaded with your company's details, clear rules on what data goes in, and people who've practiced on their own work. Our AI implementation sets the tools up correctly, and AI training gets your team using them. If you'd rather hand the whole thing off, that's our AI consulting for small business retainer.
New to all of this? Start with ChatGPT for small business.