Claude vs Gemini: Plans, Limits and Upload Sizes Side by Side

The price ladder: Claude lists dollars, Google lists euros

Claude has four tiers: Free at $0, Pro at $20 a month or $17 a month when billed annually ($200 up front), Max at $100 a month and Ultra at $200 a month. Google's page shows AI Plus at EUR 4.99, AI Pro at EUR 21.99 and AI Ultra from EUR 99.99 a month, with a higher Ultra tier at EUR 219.99.

The two figures come from different currencies. The Google page was read from the Estonian version, and no dollar price was found, so this guide does not convert. Claude's help page notes that its $20 is the US price and local pricing varies by region.

• Claude Free: $0, Sonnet and Haiku, up to 5 projects, no Claude Code
• Claude Pro: $20 monthly or $200 a year, adds Opus, Claude Code and Claude in Chrome
• Claude Max: $100, 5x Pro usage; Ultra: $200, 10x Pro weekly usage
• Google AI Plus: EUR 4.99, 2x standard limits, 400 GB storage
• Google AI Pro: EUR 21.99, 4x limits, 5 TB storage
• Google AI Ultra: from EUR 99.99 (5x Pro) or EUR 219.99 (20x Pro), 20 TB

Both cap you every 5 hours, and neither prints a message count

Claude's paid plans use a five-hour session limit that starts with your first message and resets five hours later, plus a weekly limit across all models. Google says your limit "refreshes every 5 hours until you reach your weekly limit". Claude shows what is left under Settings > Usage.

Neither company states how many messages that equals. Claude says the count depends on the model, chat length, file size and effort level, and that usage in claude.ai, Claude Code and Claude Desktop is pooled. Google rates Deep Research and video generation as the heaviest uses and large file analysis as medium.

What happens at the wall differs. Google subscribers can keep chatting with Flash-Lite after the limit. On Claude Pro you can switch on usage credits to go past it. Ultra accounts that Anthropic has verified have no five-hour limit.

Context size: 1 million tokens on paid plans, but not on every tier

The context window is how much text a chat can hold at once. Google's limits page gives 32k tokens with no plan, 128k on AI Plus, and 1 million on AI Pro and Ultra. Google estimates 1 million tokens at about 1,500 pages of text or 30,000 lines of code.

Claude says size depends on the model: the newest models on paid plans reach 1M tokens, and others have 500K or 200K. For developers, Anthropic lists a 1M window and 128K maximum output for Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5 on the API, which is a separate paid product from the chat plans.

One conflict in Google's own pages: the upload page calls 1 million tokens the standard window, while the limits page says 32k without a plan. Check the limits page for your tier.

A worked example: attaching a 600-page PDF and a 90-minute recording

Claude accepts PDFs up to 1000 pages, 500 MB per file and 20 files per chat. A PDF of 100 pages or fewer gets text and visual analysis; between 101 and 1000 pages Claude reads text only. So 600 pages upload fine, but charts inside it are not analysed.

Gemini takes up to 10 files per prompt and 100 MB for most files. Its page does not state a PDF page limit, so none is claimed here. For recordings, audio is capped at 10 minutes total, or 3 hours on Google AI Pro or Ultra. A 90-minute recording therefore needs a Pro or Ultra plan. Video allows 5 minutes, or 1 hour on Pro or Ultra, so a 90-minute video would not fit on either tier.

Claude's upload page lists documents and images, not audio or video files, so a recording is a Gemini job in this comparison.

What each plan adds beyond chat

Claude Pro adds Opus, Claude Code and Claude in Chrome, and Max and Ultra include API credits of $100 and $200 a month. Projects let you store files and instructions: Free accounts get up to 5, project files can be 30 MB each, and paid plans switch to retrieval mode when knowledge nears the context limit.

Google AI Pro bundles 5 TB of storage and Gemini in Gmail and Docs. AI Ultra adds a YouTube Premium individual membership. Gemini also lets you upload a code folder or repository of up to 5,000 files and 100 MB per chat.

Common mistakes when comparing them

Comparing a 1M context on a Google plan with a Claude chat that may sit on 200K gives a false picture, because Claude's size depends on the model you pick. Comparing a monthly euro price with a yearly dollar price does the same. Limits also move: Google says they can change at any time and that unpaid users may be restricted first when demand is high.

Another slip is reading plan names as model names. Claude's models are Fable 5.1, Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5. Google's page lists Gemini 4 Argon as its flagship model, but its plan table names Flash for AI Plus, so the model you get depends on the tier.

Who each suits

Claude Pro suits people who work with long documents and code and want Projects with fixed instructions. Google AI Pro suits people already living in Gmail, Docs and Drive, who want 5 TB of storage in the same bill. Free users get less from both: Google gives 32k tokens, Claude gives up to 5 projects.

If a limit message or an error appears mid-task, Crade can read the screen and say what it means. It does not replace either assistant.