Copilot vs Claude: Claude now runs inside Copilot, so the price decides

Is Copilot or Claude better?

Copilot is now partly Claude, so what you're really choosing is the wrapper and what it costs you. The gap is widest on Claude Opus. It comes with Anthropic's own Pro plan for $20 a month, but GitHub puts it on Pro+, which is almost twice that at $39.

Anthropic gets you each Claude family for less. Claude Free includes Claude Sonnet and Claude Haiku, and Claude Pro adds Claude Opus at $20 a month, per Anthropic's pricing page on 12 October 2026. Pro lists Claude Fable too, but only on paid usage credits. GitHub Copilot Free picks the model for you. Its $10 Pro plan lists Claude Sonnet and Haiku, not Opus, and GitHub's plan docs put Opus and Fable on Pro+ at $39.

GitHub has the better deal for heavy users, though. It charges for Claude by the token at exactly Anthropic's API list price: $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens for Claude Opus 5.5, and $2 and $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5. Those figures match line for line on GitHub's model pricing table and Anthropic's API pricing. Then GitHub hands you more credit than you pay for. Copilot Pro's $10 comes with $15 of usage a month. Pro+ turns $39 into $70, and Max turns $100 into $200. GitHub calls the extra a flex allotment and says it can change.

Microsoft has gone a step further than that. Its admin docs, updated 18 September 2026, say: "Microsoft enables Anthropic models on by default for most customers in commercial cloud (excluding EU/EFTA and UK)." That covers Microsoft Copilot, Researcher, Copilot Studio and Copilot in the Microsoft 365 apps. If your employer pays for Copilot, you may already be using Claude without picking it.

Which Copilot are you comparing with Claude?

Copilot is three products, and two of them carry Claude. Here's each one next to Claude, with US prices read on 12 October 2026:

The names keep moving. Microsoft's own docs now carry the note that "Microsoft 365 Copilot is now named Microsoft Copilot". Microsoft also stopped selling Copilot Pro, its old $20 consumer plan, so any page that pits Claude Pro against Copilot Pro is out of date. Microsoft's consumer plans page lists Premium at $19.99 with "extensive usage" of Copilot chat, and it doesn't say which models answer.

Copilot Business had a first year promotion at $18 a user when we checked. Microsoft says it ends on 31 December 2026, so the table shows the $21 list price.

Is Copilot or Claude better for Excel and Office work?

Copilot is better at work, because it already reads your company's data. Microsoft's Copilot page says it "combines the most advanced language models with your data in Microsoft Graph", which is the index of your mail, files, meetings and chats. It works inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, where you already are. And it inherits the security and compliance rules your IT team already set. Its Cowork agent can also send the email, build the spreadsheet or book the meeting for you once you approve each step, and Microsoft's Cowork docs say it "can optionally use Anthropic models as a subprocessor".

Claude now reaches into the same apps through add-ins. Anthropic's Excel docs say Claude for Excel is "generally available to Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans", and it shares context with Claude's add-ins for PowerPoint, Word and Outlook. It runs in Excel on the web, on Windows and on Mac. It won't run on iPad, on Android, or in Excel 2016 and 2019.

Claude can also reach your work files from its own app. The Microsoft 365 connector searches SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook and Teams, and it's on every Claude plan, Free included. There's a catch. It needs a work account, and Anthropic says personal @outlook.com, @hotmail.com and @live.com accounts "can't be used". Sending mail or Teams messages needs an admin to switch on write tools.

It comes down to who pays for it. If your company already licenses Copilot, it costs you nothing, and it may already run Claude. If you're paying yourself, Claude Pro at $17 a month billed yearly costs less than Copilot Business at $21. Copilot Business also needs a Microsoft 365 business plan under it. Claude's add-in still needs Excel itself, so neither route skips the Office bill.

Is GitHub Copilot or Claude Code better for coding?

GitHub Copilot is the cheaper way to code with Claude Sonnet, and Claude Code is the cheaper way to code with Claude Opus. Copilot Pro costs $10 a month. It includes Claude Sonnet 5.5, unlimited inline suggestions, Copilot CLI and the cloud agent. Claude Pro costs $20 and includes Claude Code with Opus. To get Opus inside GitHub Copilot, you need Pro+ at $39.

GitHub Copilot can also run Anthropic's own agent, but not on every plan. GitHub's agent docs list Anthropic Claude and OpenAI Codex as third party coding agents and say they're "currently in public preview". The docs name Pro, but GitHub's plans page marks the agents as not included on the $10 Pro plan and included on Pro+ and Max, so plan on $39 if you want them. Each session spends AI credits and GitHub Actions minutes.

The free plans split the same way. GitHub Copilot Free gives 2,000 inline suggestions a month, and it picks the model for you. Claude Free gives you Sonnet in chat, but Anthropic doesn't include Claude Code on it.

So start from where you do the work. If your day is pull requests on GitHub.com and suggestions in your editor, Copilot is already there for $10. If you want Opus for under $39, Claude Pro is how you get it. Claude vs ChatGPT covers how Claude compares with the other big coding model.

Do Copilot and Claude train on your chats?

Work Copilot doesn't, and the consumer versions of both let you say no. Here's what each vendor's own pages say, as of October 2026:

The Microsoft rows come from its privacy controls page, its Copilot page and the admin docs above. The Claude rows come from Anthropic's consumer terms update and its privacy centre. One thing to know before an admin switches on a Fable class model in Copilot: Microsoft says some of them come as "Anthropic models with Data Retention", where Anthropic stores most inputs and outputs for up to 30 days.

Should you pick Copilot or Claude?

Pick Claude unless your work already lives in Microsoft 365 at a company or on GitHub. Here's the split:

If you want Claude next to GPT and Gemini in one chat, and not inside Office or your editor, look at Whizi Pro. It costs $29.99 a month, and it carries Claude Opus, Claude Sonnet and ChatGPT Sol with a side by side compare. A Claude Sonnet message costs 10 credits and Claude Opus 20, out of 2,500 a month. Whizi doesn't work inside Word, Excel or your code editor, so it replaces neither Copilot. Copilot vs ChatGPT covers the Microsoft side against OpenAI.