What is ChatGPT? A guide for European business
The question of what ChatGPT is rarely comes from the people who use it every day. It tends to come from finance, the week someone finds five card payments to OpenAI on the company statement and wants to know what the business is paying for and who approved it. ChatGPT is the most widely used AI assistant today, and OpenAI announced 900 million weekly users in February 2026.1 Below you find who owns it, which plans and products exist, what they cost in euros and what a European company needs in place before the team logs in.
We supply both ChatGPT and Claude to companies across Europe through managed ChatGPT Business on one euro invoice and the same service for Claude. That is why we write plainly about when one fits better than the other.
ChatGPT in brief, checked on 9 November 2026
| Question | Short answer |
|---|---|
| What is it? | An AI assistant from OpenAI for writing, analysis, documents and code |
| Who owns it? | OpenAI Group PBC, controlled by the OpenAI Foundation, with Microsoft holding about 27 per cent |
| Cheapest paid plan | Go at $8 a month in the US, Plus at $20, about €18 |
| For companies | Business at $20 per user billed annually, from two seats, paid by card |
| Data in Europe | Storage on Enterprise and rolling out on Business, processing only on Enterprise |
What is ChatGPT? The short answer
OpenAI, the American AI company, makes ChatGPT, an assistant that answers questions, writes text, reads documents and analyses spreadsheets when you describe the task in plain words. Released on 30 November 2022, it now runs on the web, as an app for iOS and Android and as a desktop app for macOS and Windows.2 Its interface works in 22 of the 24 official EU languages, all except Irish and Maltese, and the model answers in the language you write in.3
For a company the catch is that one name covers four different things. Personal plans, the business plans Business and Enterprise, the coding agent Codex and the agent ChatGPT Work all carry it, and the differences decide what you pay and where your data goes.
Who owns ChatGPT and OpenAI?
ChatGPT belongs to OpenAI Group PBC, a public benefit corporation, meaning a for-profit company whose legal form obliges it to weigh its mission and not only shareholder returns.4 At the recapitalisation that closed on 28 October 2025, the OpenAI Foundation held 26 per cent and kept the right to appoint every member of the board.4 Microsoft held roughly 27 per cent on a diluted basis, and current and former employees and investors held the remaining 47 per cent.54
Ownership matters less in daily work than who signs your contract. Customers in the European Economic Area and Switzerland sign OpenAI's Data Processing Addendum, the contract that Article 28 of the GDPR asks for, with OpenAI Ireland Ltd in Dublin.6 The Irish company is the party you read and sign with, whatever happens to the share register in San Francisco.
Which ChatGPT plans and products exist in 2026?
OpenAI sells four personal plans and two business plans, and the products Codex and ChatGPT Work sit on top of them with different limits per plan.7 Dollar prices below come from OpenAI's own pages, and euro figures use the European Central Bank rate of 25 September 2026, 1.1403 dollars to the euro, before VAT.8
ChatGPT Free, Go and Plus
ChatGPT Free costs nothing and gives unlimited text chats with limited uploads, image creation and Codex, while ChatGPT Go costs $8 a month in the US and may show ads.79 Plus at $20 a month, about €18, adds reasoning models such as GPT-6 Astra, projects, scheduled tasks and ChatGPT Work on desktop, web and mobile.7 Most employees who pay for ChatGPT privately sit on Plus, and their receipts arrive in expense claims without the company's VAT number.
All three are personal plans where the account belongs to the person and not to the company. When someone leaves, the subscription leaves with them, because no admin can close an account that an employee pays for with their own card.
ChatGPT Pro
ChatGPT Pro comes in three monthly tiers at $100, $200 and $500, about €88, €175 and €438, and only the top tier includes the Ultrafast models.10 Pro suits one developer or analyst who runs code or deep research all day, and never a team, because each Pro account is still personal.
ChatGPT Business
ChatGPT Business is the plan for teams of 2 to 200 people, and a Standard seat costs $20 per user a month billed annually or $25 monthly.11 A Premium seat at $100 or $125 gives five times the usage and removes the five-hour window, and both seat types include ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work and Codex in one shared workspace.11 Self-serve Business is paid by card only, since invoicing, bank transfer and purchase orders need an Enterprise agreement.11 Every seat type and its limits are in ChatGPT Business pricing for Europe.
ChatGPT Enterprise
ChatGPT Enterprise is sold through OpenAI's sales team without a public price list. It is the plan that adds inference residency, meaning the model also processes your content inside Europe, plus invoicing and automatic user sync from the company directory.12 Expect a quote and a negotiation, and expect the plan to pay off only when a customer or your own data protection officer demands processing in Europe. ChatGPT Enterprise in Europe covers the plan in detail.
ChatGPT Codex
Codex is OpenAI's coding agent, a program that writes, reviews and ships code for a developer, and it comes with every ChatGPT plan at different usage limits.7 Developers reach Codex through a desktop app, the command line and the web, and OpenAI says plan usage will share one limit across ChatGPT and Codex from December 2026.13
ChatGPT Work and workspace agents
ChatGPT Work is the agent that takes a goal and hands back a finished document or spreadsheet, and OpenAI brought it to paid plans on 9 July 2026.14 Workspace agents, saved workflows that a whole team shares, arrived on 22 April 2026 and make the same weekly report run the same way whoever starts it.15 What the agent manages and where it hits its ceiling are in what ChatGPT Work is.
What happened to ChatGPT Atlas
ChatGPT Atlas was OpenAI's web browser with ChatGPT built in, launched for Mac in October 2025, and in July 2026 OpenAI said it would close Atlas on 9 August 2026.16 Agent mode, where ChatGPT clicks and fills in forms on a web page, now lives in the desktop app and a Chrome extension instead. Anyone on the team who still has Atlas installed should remove it and sign in to the desktop app.
How does ChatGPT work in practice?
The first workflow we set up in a new Business workspace is nearly always the monthly sales report, because it has clear input, a clear reader and a result anyone can check. Someone drops the CRM export into a shared folder, and ChatGPT Work gets the same instruction every month instead of someone building the pivot table by hand.
Paste exactly this into ChatGPT Work. "Here is last month's sales export. Make a table per salesperson with deals, order value and change against last month, and write unsure where figures do not add up". The output varies between runs on the same file, so a person still reads the table before it goes to the board.
What does ChatGPT cost a European company?
OpenAI lists the prices below in US dollars on its own pages, and the last row is our own route for companies that need an invoice in euros.711
| Plan | Price per month | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Testing without a company contract |
| Go | $8 in the US, local price elsewhere, about €7 | Light personal use |
| Plus | $20, about €18 | One professional user |
| Pro | $100, $200 or $500, about €88 to €438 | One heavy user all day |
| Business Standard | $20 per user annually or $25 monthly, about €18 or €22 | Teams of 2 to 200 people |
| Business Premium | $100 per user annually or $125 monthly, about €88 or €110 | The person who runs the agent daily |
| Enterprise | Quote | Processing in Europe and invoicing |
| Business through satori-chatgpt | €22 licence plus €14 support per user, €490 setup | Companies that require a euro invoice |
Eight Standard seats bought directly from OpenAI cost $1,920 a year on annual billing, about €1,684, paid by card. The same eight seats through satori-chatgpt cost €3,456 a year plus €490 in the first year, which buys one euro invoice, VAT handled and a person who adds and removes users. Pick Business Standard direct if finance accepts a card payment, and pick satori-chatgpt if the company needs an invoice. All plans with what they include are in ChatGPT pricing 2026 in euros, and the purchase step by step is in buying ChatGPT Business licences.
Is ChatGPT safe for European companies?
OpenAI does not train its models on Business or Enterprise content by default, according to its own business data page, and that is the question most companies ask first.17 Business lets the buyer pick Europe as the storage region at checkout as OpenAI rolls the option out.18 OpenAI still keeps a copy of prompts and responses in the US for a limited time to monitor abuse. Processing inside Europe needs Enterprise or Edu, so a Business workspace sends its content to US infrastructure for every answer.12
Transfers outside the EEA rest on Standard Contractual Clauses, the model contract the EU wrote for sending personal data abroad. OpenAI was not on the US Data Privacy Framework list when we searched on 4 November 2026, so the transfer rests on those clauses plus your own written assessment.19 Three things belong in place before the first login: the signed DPA, the transfer assessment and a one-page rule on what staff may paste in.
The contract still does not stop a salesperson from pasting a customer list into a private Plus account, so expect the rule and the accounts to be the hard part. Our ChatGPT GDPR guide walks through each step, and ChatGPT data residency in Europe shows exactly what stays in the region.
Is ChatGPT better than Claude?
The answer depends on where the team's work lives, because ChatGPT Work reads the cloud apps you connect, such as Google Drive, SharePoint and Slack, while Claude also works inside local folders, Excel and PowerPoint.13 A company whose files live in Google Workspace usually gets going faster with ChatGPT, and a company whose contracts sit on local drives tends to land on Claude.
ChatGPT is the better pick when staff work in many European languages, since its interface covers 22 official EU languages against six for Claude.3 Enterprise also wins when a chat app must process data inside Europe.12 Claude fits better for long contracts and reports, and for API work that must run inside the EU. Amazon Bedrock's EU cross-region inference and the EU multi-region endpoint on Google Cloud keep that work in the region.2021 Claude's own apps store data in the US, the same starting point as ChatGPT Business.20
At list price the two sit on the same line, with ChatGPT Plus at $20 a month against €18 for Claude Pro.22 We have written an honest answer on whether Claude is better than ChatGPT, and the matching guide for Anthropic's assistant is what Claude AI is.
How do you get started with ChatGPT?
Start by counting the private accounts, because that number decides how many seats you need and how much the company already pays without knowing it.
- List everyone who pays for ChatGPT privately and uses it at work
- Pick a plan: Business by card, Enterprise by invoice, or Business on a euro invoice through us
- Download the Data Processing Addendum and have someone with authority read it
- Write the one-page rule on what staff may paste in
- Book a first training session on the team's own files
Tip from satori.: Set up one workflow in the first week, such as the monthly report above, and measure the time before and after. A team that sees its own number logs in again, while a team shown every feature in one afternoon forgets them by Friday.
Training runs in the same format as our Claude workshops, two hours for €280 per user from eight users, and the full offer is on ChatGPT training for companies. Teams that want help with the setup itself can read what a ChatGPT consultant does before they decide.
Summary and next steps
ChatGPT is OpenAI's AI assistant, owned by OpenAI Group PBC and contracted through OpenAI Ireland for European customers. The personal plans run from Free to Pro, Business costs $20 per user a month billed annually, and Enterprise adds processing in Europe and invoicing. Codex and ChatGPT Work come with the plans, at limits that grow with what you pay.
Open last month's card statement and expense claims, search for OpenAI and write down the total and the number of lines. Twenty minutes later you have a figure for what the company already spends on ChatGPT, and that figure is all you need to choose a plan.
Sources
Footnotes
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TechCrunch (2026). ChatGPT reaches 900M weekly active users, 27 February 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/27/chatgpt-reaches-900m-weekly-active-users ↩
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OpenAI (2022). Introducing ChatGPT, 30 November 2022. https://openai.com/index/chatgpt/ ↩
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OpenAI Help Center (2026). How to change your language setting in ChatGPT. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8357869-how-to-change-your-language-setting-in-chatgpt ↩ ↩2
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OpenAI (2025). Our structure, 28 October 2025. https://openai.com/our-structure/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3
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Microsoft (2025). The next chapter of the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership, 28 October 2025. https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/10/28/the-next-chapter-of-the-microsoft-openai-partnership/ ↩
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OpenAI (2025). OpenAI Data Processing Addendum, effective 1 January 2026. https://openai.com/policies/data-processing-addendum/ ↩
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OpenAI (2026). ChatGPT Plans and Pricing, checked on 9 November 2026. https://chatgpt.com/pricing/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
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European Central Bank (2026). US dollar (USD) euro reference exchange rate. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/policy_and_exchange_rates/euro_reference_exchange_rates/html/eurofxref-graph-usd.en.html ↩
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OpenAI Help Center (2026). What is ChatGPT Go? https://help.openai.com/en/articles/11989085-what-is-chatgpt-go ↩
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OpenAI Help Center (2026). About ChatGPT Pro tiers. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9793128-about-chatgpt-pro-tiers ↩
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OpenAI Help Center (2026). Managing billing and seats in ChatGPT Business. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8792536-managing-billing-and-seats-in-chatgpt-business ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
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OpenAI Help Center (2026). Data residency and inference residency for ChatGPT. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9903489-data-residency-and-inference-residency-for-chatgpt ↩ ↩2 ↩3
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OpenAI Help Center (2026). ChatGPT Work and Codex. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001275-chatgpt-work-and-codex ↩ ↩2
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OpenAI Help Center (2026). ChatGPT Business release notes, entry of 9 July 2026. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/11391654-chatgpt-business-release-notes ↩
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OpenAI (2026). Introducing workspace agents in ChatGPT, 22 April 2026. https://openai.com/index/introducing-workspace-agents-in-chatgpt/ ↩
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TechCrunch (2026). OpenAI is shutting down Atlas, but its AI browser ambitions are still growing, 9 July 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/09/openai-is-shutting-down-atlas-but-its-ai-browser-ambitions-are-still-growing/ ↩
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OpenAI (2026). Business data privacy, security, and compliance. https://openai.com/business-data/ ↩
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OpenAI Help Center (2026). Where your ChatGPT Business content is stored. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001418-where-your-chatgpt-business-content-is-stored ↩
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International Trade Administration, US Department of Commerce (2026). Data Privacy Framework List, searched for OpenAI on 4 November 2026. https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/list ↩
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Anthropic (2026). Where are your servers located? Do you host your models on EU servers? Anthropic Privacy Center. https://privacy.claude.com/en/articles/7996890-where-are-your-servers-located-do-you-host-your-models-on-eu-servers ↩ ↩2
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Amazon Web Services (2026). Geographic cross-Region inference. Amazon Bedrock User Guide. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/geographic-cross-region-inference.html ↩
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Anthropic (2026). Plans and Pricing, checked from an EU connection on 9 November 2026. https://claude.com/pricing ↩
Frequently asked questions
ChatGPT is an AI assistant from OpenAI that answers questions, writes text, reads documents and analyses spreadsheets when you describe the task in plain words. It comes as the personal plans Free, Go, Plus and Pro, as the business plans Business and Enterprise, and with the agents Codex for code and ChatGPT Work for finished documents.
ChatGPT belongs to OpenAI Group PBC, a for-profit public benefit corporation. At the recapitalisation of 28 October 2025 the OpenAI Foundation held 26 per cent and appoints the whole board, Microsoft held roughly 27 per cent, and current and former employees and investors held the remaining 47 per cent. Customers in the EEA sign their data contract with OpenAI Ireland Ltd.
Yes, ChatGPT Free costs nothing and gives unlimited text chats with limited uploads, image creation, Codex and a limited ChatGPT Work in the desktop app. Go costs $8 a month in the US with a local price elsewhere, Plus $20, about €18, and Pro starts at $100 a month.
ChatGPT Business costs $20 per user a month billed annually or $25 monthly, about €18 or €22, from two seats and paid by card. A Premium seat with five times the usage costs $100 or $125. Through satori-chatgpt the Standard seat costs €22 plus €14 per user a month on one euro invoice, and €490 once for the setup.
OpenAI does not train its models on Business or Enterprise data by default and signs a data processing addendum through OpenAI Ireland Ltd. Business stores content in the US unless the Europe option at checkout has reached you, and processing in Europe needs Enterprise. You still need the DPA, a transfer assessment and a one-page rule on what staff may paste in.
It depends on where your work and your data sit. ChatGPT covers 22 of the 24 official EU languages in its interface and can store Business content in Europe. Claude is the better fit for long contracts, local folders and API work that must run inside the EU through Amazon Bedrock or Google Cloud.
Create a Business workspace, buy at least two seats and pay by card, or sign Enterprise through OpenAI's sales team if you need invoicing and processing in Europe. A company that wants Business on one euro invoice with VAT handled can have satori. buy the seats through satori-chatgpt.
OpenAI released ChatGPT on 30 November 2022 as a free research preview. Plus followed in February 2023, and the business plan now called Business arrived as ChatGPT Team in 2024. ChatGPT Work, the agent that hands over finished files, reached paid plans on 9 July 2026.
About the author
Joachim helps European companies understand and use AI in everyday work. As founder of satori., he trains teams, coaches leadership groups, and shows how tools like Claude become a natural part of work.