ChatGPT Business, Copilot or Gemini for business — plans, prices and data

ChatGPT Business costs CHF 15 per user per month billed annually or CHF 19 billed monthly, and the plan needs at least two users. The pricing page does not say whether VAT is included. The biggest difference from private ChatGPT is not in the language model but in the contract. On a business plan the vendor does not train its models on your company's data by default, signs a data processing agreement with you, and an administrator manages employees' accounts. For a Swiss company the legal frame is the revised Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP), which applies directly to AI-supported data processing.

Whether an AI assistant is safe for a company is decided by the plan and the contract, not by the brand. Private ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot, even when paid, run on consumer terms. Before you buy a separate subscription, check what your office suite already includes: Copilot Chat on a work account and Gemini in Google Workspace already run on business terms.

We read prices and terms on the vendors' pages on 8 October 2026, on their Swiss storefronts where the vendor has one (Anthropic and Google show US dollars to Swiss visitors), and quote English-language pages in their own words; for Swiss law we cite Fedlex, where the French, German and Italian texts are authoritative. We do not compare the quality of the models, because there is no neutral public comparison to build on.

Private plan or ChatGPT Business: what a business plan really changes

A business plan changes three things: whether the vendor may train models on your data, what role the vendor has under data protection law, and who manages the accounts. OpenAI shows this best, because it publishes both sets of rules side by side.

Training the models. On services for individuals such as ChatGPT, OpenAI states: "we may use your content to train our models" (policy of 13 March 2026). You can opt out in the privacy portal, but the opt-out covers only new conversations, and chats in Temporary Chat are not used for training. For business users the same page says: "By default, we do not train on any inputs or outputs from our products for business users, including ChatGPT Team, ChatGPT Enterprise, and the API."

Role under data protection law. For a private user in the European Economic Area or Switzerland, OpenAI's EU privacy policy says that OpenAI Ireland Limited "is the controller": it decides how conversations are processed. On a business plan, once you sign the Data Processing Addendum, OpenAI "acts as a Data Processor on the Customer's behalf". For customers in an EEA country or Switzerland the contracting party is OpenAI Ireland, and transfers outside the EEA or Switzerland rest on standard contractual clauses or a European Commission adequacy decision under Art. 45 GDPR. Under Swiss law the processor relationship is governed by Art. 9 of the revised FADP, and transfers abroad by Art. 16: Ireland is on the Federal Council's list of countries with adequate protection as an EU state, and since 15 September 2024 the list also covers certified companies in the United States under the Swiss-US Data Privacy Framework. We make no claim that any of the four vendors is certified. On ChatGPT Business the agreement does not arrive by itself: OpenAI's Enterprise Privacy page (updated 8 January 2026) says the DPA is signed by filling in a DPA form.

Administration. ChatGPT Business has SAML single sign-on, an admin console, admin roles and domain verification, and OpenAI's pricing table marks each of these as unavailable on individual plans. Administrators control how long data is kept, and deleted or unsaved conversations are removed from OpenAI's systems within 30 days unless the law or the protection of its services requires longer retention.

Other vendors divide things the same way:

• Claude (Free, Pro, Max). According to Anthropic's announcement of 28 August 2025, the company trains new models on data from these accounts when the setting is on, and then keeps data for five years; without that consent the existing 30-day retention applies. The changes do not apply to Team and Enterprise, which run on commercial terms.
• Gemini on a personal Google account. Human reviewers read some conversations. Google's Gemini Apps Privacy Hub (updated 24 September 2026) says: "Please don't enter confidential information that you wouldn't want a reviewer to see or Google to use to improve our services," and that reviewed chats "are not deleted when you delete your activity" but kept for up to three years.
• Copilot on a personal Microsoft account. Use is governed by the Microsoft Services Agreement and the Copilot Terms of Use, not by the data processing addendum Microsoft concludes with organisations.

The business plans of all four vendors do not train their models on company data by default. Each says so in its own words, and some attach a condition:

• ChatGPT Business and Enterprise. OpenAI: "By default, we do not use your business data for training our models," unless you explicitly opt in to share data, for example through its feedback tools.
• Copilot Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot on a work account. Microsoft's enterprise data protection documentation: "the prompts, responses, and data accessed through Microsoft Graph aren't used to train foundation models." The condition is a Microsoft Entra work account. Web queries to Bing have their own data handling, according to the same documentation.
• Gemini in Google Workspace. Google's generative AI privacy hub for Workspace: "Workspace does not use customer data for training models without customer's prior permission or instruction." The condition is a qualifying Workspace edition and no such permission.
• Gemini Enterprise. Google's Gemini Enterprise FAQ, on the Business, Standard and Plus editions: your data, "including prompts, outputs, and training," isn't used to train Google models or models for any other customer. The page attaches no condition.
• Claude Team and Enterprise. Anthropic's Commercial Terms: "Anthropic may not train models on Customer Content from Services." The Team pricing page is more cautious: no model training on your content "by default."

A paid private plan, meaning ChatGPT Plus or Pro or Claude Pro or Max, is therefore not a business plan. You pay for higher limits, and the data terms stay consumer terms.

What you already have in your suite: Copilot Chat and Gemini in Workspace

If your company runs on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, you probably already have an assistant on business terms. Before you buy another subscription, check what is switched on and under which rules.

Microsoft 365. According to Microsoft's documentation, Copilot Chat is available "at no extra cost for eligible users who sign in with a Microsoft Entra work or school account and have a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription." The qualifying list includes Business Basic, Business Standard and Business Premium. Microsoft says that organisations' use of Copilot and Copilot Chat is covered by its Data Protection Addendum and Product Terms, with Microsoft acting as a data processor. Copilot Chat has limited reach: without a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence it has no access to your company's data in Microsoft Graph, meaning mail, files and chats. An employee can still upload a file into the conversation. Plan prices and the scope of AI in each plan are compared in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.

Google Workspace. Gemini in qualifying Workspace editions follows the rules of the generative AI privacy hub (updated 14 August 2026). Prompts are customer data under the Cloud Data Processing Addendum, Google's processing agreement. Content is not human reviewed or used for model training outside your domain without permission. Prompts and responses in Gemini in Workspace are stored from 90 days to indefinitely, as set by the administrator. The scope depends on the plan: Business Starter has Gemini in Gmail and in the Gemini app, and Docs, Sheets and Meet follow only from Business Standard.

An assistant in your suite sees everything the employee is allowed to see. Microsoft says Copilot shows organisational data the user has at least view permission to, and Google says Gemini does not reach content the user cannot access. So folders shared too widely become a problem the day the assistant is switched on. We describe that hidden cost in the hub AI in business.

If you have Microsoft 365 or Workspace, start with the assistant that is already in the price: tidy up permissions and write the rules down. Buy a separate plan only when you know what that assistant lacks.

ChatGPT Business, Team and Enterprise: price and terms

ChatGPT Business costs CHF 15 per user per month billed annually and CHF 19 billed monthly, with a minimum of two seats. That is what OpenAI's pricing page shows for Switzerland (read 8 October 2026). The page does not say whether the amounts include VAT. Monthly billing is about 27% dearer than annual (19 / 15, our calculation).

ChatGPT Team is now ChatGPT Business. OpenAI renamed the plan on 29 August 2025 and existing Team workspaces became Business workspaces. According to OpenAI's help centre, the rename did not change the plan, though later prices and seat types may change. If you are looking for the price of "ChatGPT Team", the Business price applies.

Terms worth knowing before you buy:

• Minimum of two seats. A Business workspace needs at least two paid seats, standard or Premium. A Premium seat gives five times more usage than a standard seat and costs $100 per user per month billed annually or $125 billed monthly. Those are dollar prices from the help centre; the pricing page does not show the Premium seat price in francs.
• Payment and invoices. You pay for Business by credit card. Invoice billing, purchase orders or bank transfer are offered by OpenAI only through a sales-led contract, not self-serve Business. In the workspace billing settings you can add a Tax ID or VAT ID, and a change applies to future invoices only.
• Refunds and seat changes. Unused seats do not by themselves qualify for a refund once the workspace has committed to the seat count for a billing cycle. A seat reduction takes effect at the start of the next billing cycle.
• API separate. A Business subscription does not include API usage, which OpenAI bills separately.
• History and export. According to OpenAI's help, each user in a Business workspace has their own chat history, and data export is not available from a Business workspace.

Business also has workspace agents, company knowledge and connectors to tools such as Microsoft 365, Google Drive or Slack. The word "agent" in a feature name does not mean you are buying an autonomous agent; how an agent differs from an assistant is explained in AI agents in business.

ChatGPT Enterprise is priced individually by the sales team. Compared with Business it adds SCIM for automatic account provisioning, enterprise key management, role-based access control, an IP allowlist, compliance logs and ISO certifications 27001, 27017, 27018 and 27701, plus invoice billing and volume discounts. The most important difference for companies that want data kept in Europe is data residency: OpenAI announced data residency in Europe for ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT Edu and the API Platform, and writes of "new" and "eligible" customers. The Business plan is not on that list, and no Swiss region appears among the residency locations OpenAI lists. Whether your workspace qualifies is settled in the offer.

ChatGPT price: Plus or Business

Private ChatGPT Plus costs CHF 20 a month, more than the CHF 15 of one Business seat, but Business needs two seats. A one-person company would therefore pay at least CHF 30 a month for Business billed annually (2 × CHF 15, our calculation) against CHF 20 for Plus. The pages do not say whether the amounts include VAT.

The other private plans on OpenAI's pricing page for Switzerland (read 8 October 2026): Free CHF 0, Go CHF 7 and Pro from CHF 83 a month.

The difference in terms matters more than the price. On Plus, as on other private plans, OpenAI may train its models on your conversations until you opt out in the settings. There is no single sign-on, admin console or roles, and OpenAI Ireland is a controller rather than a processor acting for your company.

A sensible split follows: use a business plan for company and client data, and keep the private plan for private tasks. If your staff already work on private Plus accounts, you are already paying for an assistant, only on terms that do not fit company data.

Copilot price for business: when to pay extra for Microsoft 365 Copilot

The Microsoft 365 Copilot Business add-on costs CHF 17.00 per user per month with an annual commitment, excluding VAT. Microsoft's Swiss page (read 8 October 2026; the German-language version shows the same amounts, "zzgl. MwSt.") states that VAT is not included in the price. From 1 July to 31 December 2026 a promotional price of CHF 14.57 applies, only to existing Microsoft 365 customers with an eligible business plan, only for the first year, and with an annual commitment. To buy the add-on you need a separate licence for a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan, and the offer covers up to 300 users. Paid monthly, as a monthly subscription, the add-on costs CHF 20.40 per user per month, also excluding VAT.

Free Copilot Chat is not the same as paid Microsoft 365 Copilot. Copilot Chat, included with qualifying Microsoft 365 plans on a work account, runs in the browser, in the Microsoft Edge side panel, in Outlook and Teams, and in the Microsoft Copilot app. Microsoft describes it as a service with enterprise data protection, but without a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence it does not reach your mail and files. The paid add-on brings Copilot into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams and gives it access to company data through Microsoft Graph.

Names change. In the documentation Microsoft 365 Copilot is now called Microsoft Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is called Microsoft Copilot Chat, although licences may still use the old names. In the store the add-on is still called "Microsoft 365 Copilot Business". Before that there was Bing Chat Enterprise: in November 2023 Microsoft announced that it was becoming Copilot, with commercial data protection for users signed in with an Entra account.

Microsoft also sells Business Standard and Business Premium with Copilot bundled. The prices of those bundles and the "bundle or add-on" calculation are in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. For large organisations, Microsoft shows a separate price for Microsoft 365 Copilot (enterprise): CHF 24.30 per user per month paid yearly or CHF 25.52 paid monthly, both with an annual commitment and excluding VAT.

Where the data goes. The EU Data Boundary consists of the countries of the European Union and the European Free Trade Association, which Microsoft lists as including Switzerland, and covers Microsoft 365 customers whose sign-up location is in one of them. Microsoft's Copilot privacy documentation (updated 8 October 2026) says that for EU customers Microsoft Copilot is an EU Data Boundary service, and that there is one exception: models provided by Anthropic as a subprocessor are currently excluded from the boundary, and "as an admin, you can decide whether to use these models," with additional terms possibly applying. The Copilot page speaks of EU customers, so confirm with Microsoft in writing how your Swiss tenant is treated, and have the administrator check the Anthropic setting rather than leave it undecided.

Gemini for business: Gemini in Workspace or Gemini Enterprise

Gemini for business is now two different products: Gemini in Google Workspace plans, and a separate Gemini Enterprise subscription. If you have Workspace, Gemini is already in your plan, to a scope that depends on the edition. We do not give Workspace prices here; standard prices and the scope of AI in each plan are in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.

"Gemini Business" was the name of a Workspace add-on that Google sold separately before it built Gemini into the plans in 2025. Under that label there are therefore two things: the former add-on, and today's Business edition of Gemini Enterprise.

Gemini Enterprise is a separate Google Cloud subscription, independent of the office suite. The Business edition page (read 8 October 2026) says: "Starting at $21 per seat per month," in US dollars only, with a 30-day trial. Google's FAQ describes the Business edition as "Great for individuals, small businesses, and teams up to 300", while the documentation table lists 1 to 500 seats, so we state no seat cap. The page does not say whether the "starting at" price needs an annual commitment, whether it includes tax, or what the minimum number of seats is. Google also lists Standard and Plus editions for larger organisations; we could not find a current price page for them, so we quote no price.

On data location, Google's Gemini Enterprise locations page (updated 7 October 2026; it covers the Standard, Plus, pay-as-you-go and Frontline editions, not Business) lists the eu and us multi-regions as supporting data residency at rest, and in-country options for Canada, India, Japan, Singapore and the United Kingdom, but none for Switzerland. For Workspace itself, administrators can choose the United States or the European Union as the data region for supported editions, but not on Business Starter, and there is no Swiss option; whether that choice covers Gemini prompts and responses is not confirmed.

Gemini Enterprise makes the most sense where company data lives in several systems, not only in Workspace. The private Gemini app on an ordinary Google account is a third case: it runs on consumer terms, with the human review of conversations described above.

Claude Team and Enterprise

Claude Team costs US$20 per standard seat per month billed annually and US$25 billed monthly, excluding tax, for teams of 2 to 150 people. Anthropic's pricing page (read 8 October 2026, Swiss storefront) shows dollars to Swiss visitors, not francs, and states that prices shown don't include applicable tax; whether Anthropic ever invoices in francs we could not establish, so we convert nothing. A Premium seat, with five times the usage limit, costs US$100 billed annually and US$125 billed monthly. Team has central billing and administration, single sign-on, a Microsoft 365 connector and enterprise search.

Claude Enterprise has no fixed price per person. It is US$20 per seat per month billed annually plus usage at API rates, which depends on the model and the task, shown in US dollars in every market. Enterprise adds SCIM, audit logs, custom data retention controls and an IP allowlist. The cost therefore grows with the intensity of use, not only with the number of people.

The legal terms of Team and Enterprise come from Anthropic's Commercial Terms. For a customer in the EEA, Switzerland or the UK the contracting party is Anthropic Ireland, Limited. The Data Processing Addendum is incorporated into those terms, so you do not sign it separately; the customer is the controller and Anthropic the processor, transfers outside the EEA rest on standard contractual clauses, and the addendum has a Swiss addendum for Swiss data.

A disclosure: Digital Vantage uses Anthropic and OpenAI models through their APIs. Claude is in this comparison because for companies outside the Microsoft and Google ecosystems it is a real option with a published price, not because we favour it.

When a separate subscription makes sense and when the suite is enough

A separate assistant makes sense when your office suite does not cover the data your team works on, or when the company has no suite at all. The framework below is our proposal, and each condition rests on what the vendors write about their plans:

• You work in Microsoft 365 and the assistant should read the company's mail and files. Copilot Chat does not do that without a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, so you need the add-on or a plan that includes Copilot.
• You have Google Workspace from Business Standard. Gemini in Docs, Sheets and Meet is already in the price. First check whether that is enough.
• You use several systems at once or have no office suite. Then a separate subscription is in play: ChatGPT Business, Claude Team or Gemini Enterprise.
• Data must stay in Europe. ChatGPT Business does not list this. OpenAI offers data residency in Europe for ChatGPT Enterprise, and Google lists EU residency for Gemini Enterprise Standard and Plus in its documentation; none of the sources we read lists a Swiss data location at OpenAI, Anthropic or Google. Microsoft's EU Data Boundary includes Switzerland, with the Anthropic exception above.
• You are a one-person company. ChatGPT Business and Claude Team need at least two seats. For one person the first step is usually the assistant in your office suite, if you use one.
• The team is large and few people use AI. You pay per seat, not per use, and on ChatGPT Business an unused seat does not by itself qualify for a refund. Buy licences for people who really work with the assistant.

Which model writes better in your language or summarises documents better, test on your own tasks before you sign an annual commitment.

Rules for employees: data, accounts and the AI Act

A business plan achieves nothing if employees keep pasting client data into private accounts. Buying the assistant and writing the rules down is one decision.

Processing agreement. When an employee enters personal data into an assistant on the company's behalf, the vendor processes it on behalf of the company as controller. Art. 9 of the revised FADP allows processing to be assigned to a processor by contract if the data is processed only in the manner the controller itself is permitted to do it and no statutory or contractual duty of confidentiality prohibits the assignment; the controller must satisfy itself that the processor can guarantee data security, and the processor may assign to a third party only with prior approval. The English Fedlex text has no legal force. Art. 9 lists no content for the contract, unlike GDPR Art. 28(3), so do not import that list. How you conclude the agreement with each of the four vendors is described above; on ChatGPT Business you must request it through a form. Questions to put to a cloud vendor before you buy are in cloud data security.

A private account is the problem. On a private account the company has no agreement with the vendor and no influence over the settings, and, as shown above, consumer terms allow training or human review. The Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) states that the FADP, in force since 1 September 2023, "is directly applicable to AI-supported data processing" (FDPIC); there is no separate Swiss AI act. In March 2025 Switzerland signed the Council of Europe Convention on Artificial Intelligence and says it will amend Swiss law to ratify it, so ratification is pending.

A person checks the result. The European Data Protection Board's ChatGPT Taskforce report (EU guidance, not Swiss law) notes that users may take made-up output as fact. An assistant's answer is a draft, and the person who sends it answers for it.

AI Act. The EU AI Act is not Swiss law, but it can reach a Swiss company that places or uses AI systems on the EU market. In that case a company whose employees use an assistant at work is a "deployer" of an AI system under Art. 3(4) of the AI Act, unless the use is personal and non-professional, and Art. 4, as amended in July 2026, requires deployers to take measures to support AI literacy among their staff, without requiring any particular level. When the Act reaches a Swiss company and what it demands is in the EU AI Act and Switzerland; the hub AI in business collects the calendar.

Rules we suggest you write down before switching the assistant on (our list, not a legal requirement):

1. Company accounts only. For company and client data staff use only accounts on a business plan, signed in through the company identity.
2. What may be entered. Decide in writing what may be pasted into the assistant and what may not, for example special-category data or information under confidentiality agreements.
3. Only the connectors you need. Switch off connections to mail, drives and other systems the team does not need.
4. Permissions before the start. Tidy up access to folders and sites.
5. Verification before sending. A person checks every result that goes to a client or into a document. A model can state falsehoods with confidence.
6. Removing access. When someone leaves, you switch off their account in one place, through single sign-on.

Accounts, two-factor login and where company data really lives are covered in protecting company data. If your company works in a profession bound by secrecy, such as law, medicine or banking, settle the requirements for AI tools with a lawyer or data protection officer; Art. 9(1)(b) FADP is the hook, because a duty of confidentiality can prohibit assigning the processing.