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Facts checked against both vendors on September 28, 2026.
ChatGPT is the pick if you want the largest uploads (512 MB per file, about 50 MB for spreadsheets) and interactive charts in a Python notebook at $20 a month on Plus. Claude is the pick if your work ends in a real Excel workbook: it creates .xlsx files with working formulas on every plan including Free, and its Excel add-in edits your open workbook with cell-level citations from $17 a month on Pro.
This comparison is deliberately narrow. Both ChatGPT and Claude are general assistants, but the question here is which one to use for the everyday analyst job: upload a CSV or spreadsheet, clean it, compute something, chart it, and hand a file to someone else. Both now write and run code in a sandbox to do that. They differ in file limits, in what comes back, and in how they connect to Excel. Prices and limits are from each vendor's own pricing and help pages as of September 2026.
ChatGPT's data analysis feature, per OpenAI's help center, writes and runs Python in a stateful Jupyter notebook environment. You upload data files and it merges, cleans, analyzes and charts them. DataFrames can be displayed as interactive tables, and bar, line, pie and scatter charts can be interactive rather than static images. The environment cannot make external web requests, so data has to be uploaded or come through a connected source.
Claude's equivalent is code execution and file creation, which Anthropic's help center says is available to all Claude users on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise. Claude writes and runs code in a private sandbox to analyze and transform data and produce visualizations as PNG images, and it can create Excel (.xlsx), Word (.docx), PowerPoint (.pptx) and PDF files, including spreadsheets with working formulas, conditional formatting and multiple tabs. Separately, Claude for Excel is an add-in for Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise that works on an open workbook: it answers questions with cell-level citations, changes assumptions while keeping formula relationships intact, traces errors such as #REF! and #DIV/0, builds or populates models across multi-tab workbooks, and can sort, filter, edit pivot tables and apply conditional formatting.
ChatGPT's published individual plans are Free at $0, Go at $8 a month, Plus at $20 a month, and Pro starting at $100 a month with 5x or 20x the usage of Plus. Business is $20 per person a month billed annually or $25 monthly, with a two-person minimum, and Enterprise is custom. For file handling, the help center sets a hard limit of 512 MB per file, caps CSVs and spreadsheets at roughly 50 MB depending on row size, allows up to 80 file uploads every 3 hours on paid plans, and limits free accounts to 3 file uploads a day.
Claude's published plans are Free at $0, Pro at $17 a month billed annually or $20 monthly, and Max from $100 a month with 5x or 20x Pro usage. Team seats are $20 a month annually or $25 monthly for Standard and $100 annually or $125 monthly for Premium, and Enterprise is custom. Chat uploads are up to 500 MB per file and 20 files per chat, with XLSX uploads requiring code execution to be enabled. Files Claude creates are capped at 30 MB. Code execution and file creation are on every plan and draw from the normal usage limit, with file creation using more of it than ordinary chat. Claude for Excel needs Pro or above.
ChatGPT wins on the interactive notebook experience. Interactive tables and clickable bar, line, pie and scatter charts inside the chat are better for exploring a dataset than a static PNG, and the stateful Jupyter environment suits iterative analysis. The 512 MB file ceiling is the highest either vendor publishes, although spreadsheets are effectively limited to around 50 MB.
It also wins on entry price. The $8 Go plan is the cheapest paid tier from either vendor. If your deliverable is an answer and a chart rather than a formatted file, ChatGPT is the more direct route.
Claude wins when the output has to be a real spreadsheet. Creating an .xlsx with working VLOOKUPs, conditional formatting and multiple tabs, or a PDF report and a deck from one CSV, is available even on the Free plan. The 30 MB output limit covers most workbooks, and 500 MB per file with 20 files a chat is generous for raw data.
It also wins inside Excel itself. Claude for Excel operates on the open workbook rather than an uploaded copy, cites the cells it used, and preserves formula dependencies when it changes assumptions, which is what finance and FP&A users need. It runs on Excel for the web, Windows with Microsoft 365 and Mac 16.46 or later, and does not support macros, VBA or data tables. Anthropic warns to use it only with trusted spreadsheets because of prompt injection risk.
Pick ChatGPT if you mostly explore: upload a file, ask questions, look at interactive charts, refine, and copy the answer elsewhere. Pick it if Go at $8 or Plus at $20 fits your budget and you want the largest uploads.
Pick Claude if your work lives in Excel or ends as a file someone else opens, if you want file creation without paying, or if you want an add-in that edits your live workbook with citations. The two vendors' Team and Business seats are priced identically at $20 annually or $25 monthly, so for teams the choice comes down to workflow rather than the bill.
Built from each tool's listing. Vendors can update their own listing after claiming it.
ChatGPT: Free $0, Go $8 a month, Plus $20 a month, Pro from $100 a month (5x or 20x Plus usage; the $200 tier is paused for new sign-ups as of September 10, 2026), Business $20 per person a month annually or $25 monthly. Uploads are capped at 512 MB per file and about 50 MB for spreadsheets, with 80 uploads every 3 hours on paid plans and 3 a day on Free.
Claude: Free $0, Pro $17 a month annually or $20 monthly, Max from $100 a month, Team $20 or $25 per Standard seat and $100 or $125 per Premium seat, Enterprise custom. Code execution and file creation are on all plans; Claude for Excel needs Pro or above. Uploads are 500 MB per file and 20 files per chat; created files are up to 30 MB.
