ChatGPT for business: which plan should a small UK team use?

A small UK team that puts any client information into ChatGPT should usually be on the Business plan, not a handful of personal Plus accounts. Free and Plus are fine for one person's own work with nothing sensitive in it. This guide sets out what each plan is for, what it costs in pounds, and when a different tool makes more sense.

Many of the articles that rank for this question were written in 2024 or 2025. They quote old prices and a plan name that no longer exists, so the figures below come from the vendors' own UK pages, checked on the date in the note further down.

What ChatGPT plans are there?

ChatGPT has four personal plans (Free, Go, Plus and Pro) and two plans for organisations (Business and Enterprise). The personal plans belong to one person; the organisation plans add a shared workspace that you control, admin tools and business data terms.

The Business price above is for a Standard seat, which covers everyday work. There is also a Premium seat with five times the usage, at £75 a month billed annually or £90 billed monthly, and you can mix the two in one workspace.

ChatGPT's plan for small teams used to be called Team. OpenAI renamed it Business on 29th August 2025, so an older article recommending "ChatGPT Team" means this plan.

A note on dates: AI plans, plan names, prices and data terms change often. Everything in this guide was accurate when I checked it on 20th October 2026, using the prices OpenAI, Anthropic and Microsoft show to UK visitors. If you are reading this later, some of it may have changed, so check the vendors' own pages before you buy.

Is the free version of ChatGPT good enough for a small business?

The free version is good enough for trying ChatGPT out and for work with no client or staff information in it. Rewriting your own website copy, planning a newsletter or drafting a generic price list are all fine.

It stops being good enough once the work involves clients. There is no data processing agreement, your conversations can be used to train OpenAI's models unless each person switches that off, and uploads, image creation and deep research are all limited. Go, at £7 a month, raises those limits but has the same personal data terms, and OpenAI says it may include ads.

Is ChatGPT Plus enough for a team?

Plus is a plan for one person, not a team. Buying several Plus accounts gives each person their own login, which you as the owner cannot see, manage or close.

That matters most when someone leaves. Their conversations, files, projects and any custom GPTs they built belong to their personal account, not to your business, so they leave with them. It is easy to miss, because nobody thinks of a £20 personal subscription as a business system.

What does ChatGPT Business add?

ChatGPT Business adds what a business needs once more than one person uses AI with real work. In plain terms:

• Training off by default. OpenAI does not train its models on your workspace's data.
• A data processing agreement. The contract UK GDPR expects you to have with a supplier that handles personal data on your behalf.
• One workspace you control. You buy seats, add and remove people, and their work stays with the business when they leave.
• Shared projects and custom GPTs. One quote template or reply guide the whole team uses, rather than five slightly different versions.
• Connections to your other tools. Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack and more, through OpenAI's official connectors, so nobody needs to paste in passwords.
• Usage visibility and spend controls. You can see how the workspace is used and control spending on extra usage.

If client details will ever go into ChatGPT, these are the reasons to pay for Business. My guide on whether it is safe to put client data into ChatGPT covers the UK GDPR side in more detail.

How much does ChatGPT Business cost a small UK team?

ChatGPT Business costs £15 a seat a month if you pay annually, or £18 if you pay monthly, with a minimum of two seats. For a team of five on Standard seats, that is £75 a month billed annually (£900 a year), or £90 a month billed monthly.

Monthly billing costs a fifth more, but it lets you stop without being tied in for a year. For a first trial, that flexibility is often worth it.

VAT is worth checking with your accountant before you buy. OpenAI's pricing page does not say whether its UK Business prices include VAT, so look at the total at checkout. You can add your VAT number in the workspace's billing settings, and OpenAI says it may charge tax if the number turns out to be invalid. For services bought from overseas suppliers, HMRC's reverse charge rules may mean you account for the VAT yourself.

How do you know if a seat is worth paying for?

A seat is worth paying for if it gives back more time than it costs. At £15 an hour, the honest cost of delegating admin, a £15 seat needs to give back one hour a month to pay for itself.

Over a year the sums are clearer still. One hour a week given back, across 48 working weeks, is worth £720, against £180 for a seat billed annually. If someone on the team would not use it for at least one task a week, don't buy them a seat yet.

Do you need ChatGPT at all if you already pay for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace?

You may not need it, or you may need it for fewer people. Check what your existing software already includes before buying anything new.

Microsoft 365 business plans include Copilot Chat, with Microsoft's enterprise data protection when staff sign in with their work account. Google Workspace business plans include Gemini, with more features on the higher plans. For drafting emails and summarising documents, that may be enough. My guide to what AI really costs a small UK business walks through this layer by layer.

If your team already uses ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and is happy with it, you don't need to switch. The question is only whether everyone is on a business account you control.

When is Claude or Copilot a better fit?

Claude or Copilot can be a better fit depending on the work and the software you already use. The main tools are close, and the deciding factors are usually practical rather than technical.

All four keep your business data out of model training by default on these plans. For a team of five, one business account in one tool is easier to run, and much easier to keep safe, than a mix of personal accounts across several.

Who is this for, and who is it not for?

This guide is for owners of businesses with three to twelve people who are deciding how their team should pay for ChatGPT, or who suspect staff are already using personal accounts for work. It assumes no technical background.

It is not for larger organisations comparing enterprise contracts, or for regulated firms such as solicitors or financial advisers, who should check their regulator's guidance before choosing any AI tool.

What should you do next?

Pick one tool, put the team on one business account you control, and move everyone off personal logins for work. Then choose one repetitive task and use the tool on it properly for a month.

If you are unsure which task to start with, the free Mini Assessment is a ten minute call with Danni, our AI business analyst, then a fifteen minute call where I hand you one fix. If you want every opportunity costed, with the tool and its monthly price named, that is what the £997 assessment does.