The short version
Both are good at explaining concepts and reasoning through a scenario you describe well. Neither connects to your accounts, neither remembers your numbers reliably, and both will produce confident arithmetic that is wrong, which matters when the output is a retirement date.
Why people compare them
People increasingly try to do their financial planning by prompting a general AI assistant, and want to know which one is better at it.
Price and fit, side by side
| Feature | ChatGPT | Claude |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest paid plan | ChatGPTFree tier, then £7 per month | ClaudeFree tier, then $17 per month |
| Free tier | ChatGPTYes | ClaudeYes |
| Billed in pounds | ChatGPTYes | ClaudeNo |
| Best for | ChatGPTUnderstanding concepts, drafting questions for an adviser, and sense-checking your own thinking | ClaudeUnderstanding concepts, working through the logic of a decision, and preparing questions for an adviser |
Where ChatGPT wins
- Genuinely good at explaining a concept such as salary sacrifice or the personal allowance taper in plain language
- Free tier available, so there is no barrier to asking a question
- Fast, patient and available at midnight, which no adviser is
Where Claude wins
- Strong at explaining an unfamiliar concept such as salary sacrifice or the personal allowance taper in plain language
- A free tier, so there is no barrier to asking a question
- Handles long documents well, so it is useful for reading through a pension statement or a scheme booklet with you
Where both fall short
- Neither models UK pensions or answers the retirement question directly.
- Neither handles ISA allowances or the tax wrapper decisions around them.
- Neither applies UK tax rules to what it shows you.
- Both are built US-first, so UK users pay in dollars and work around US assumptions.
- Neither projects far enough forward to answer a long-term question.
If neither is quite right
If what you actually want is the retirement answer rather than a better dashboard, that is the gap Delphina was built for: UK pensions, ISAs and tax, projected to the age you want to stop. It does not do the job ChatGPT does for understanding concepts, drafting questions for an adviser, and sense-checking your own thinking, so if that is the real problem, ChatGPT is still the better buy. Free plan is £0, no card.
ChatGPT vs Claude: common questions
ChatGPT is £7 per month and Claude is $17 per month. Compare the billing period before the number: an annual price and a monthly price are not the same thing.
You can, and some people do, because they solve different halves of the problem. It does mean paying for both, so add the two annual figures together before deciding.
Judge it on billing currency, Open Banking coverage and whether ISAs and pensions are handled. Check each one against those three points, because a tool that scores well elsewhere can still be a poor fit in the UK.
ChatGPT suits understanding concepts, drafting questions for an adviser, and sense-checking your own thinking. Claude suits understanding concepts, working through the logic of a decision, and preparing questions for an adviser. The one that matches how you already think about money will take less setting up.
ChatGPT scores 4.8/5 on Apple App Store (UK) from 1.1 million ratings. Claude scores 4.6/5 on Apple App Store (UK) from 22,891 ratings. Weigh the volume as well as the score.
Delphina covers the gap both leave, which is UK pensions, ISAs and tax projected forward to retirement. The trade-off is that it does not do the job ChatGPT does for understanding concepts, drafting questions for an adviser, and sense-checking your own thinking, so if that is the real need, pick one of these two.