Auto Alpha AdvisoryOn FunPay, a marketplace better known for game items, one seller lists a "ChatGPT Business Invite — 1 DAY (24 hours)". Another sells automatic invites that last 30 minutes. In both cases the buyer gets a login to a company workspace that belongs to the seller, and the owner of a workspace may be able to access, export and delete everything you put into it.
The question behind this post arrived as four in one: is ChatGPT Business worth paying for, what does it cost in South Africa, is there a free trial, and how does it compare with Claude? I read it the way I'd read any purchase request as a CA(SA), and the answer is short. Business is worth paying for if client information goes into the chat or staff come and go, because it keeps that work in an account the firm controls. If neither applies, Plus does the job. Claude's Team plan costs the same and deserves the same test. A seat inside someone else's workspace is never worth it, at any price.
What a Business seat costs
A standard ChatGPT Business seat is $25 per user per month on monthly billing, or $20 per user per month billed annually, with a minimum of two seats per workspace. ChatGPT Plus is $20 a month, billed monthly.
At the European Central Bank's reference rates for 22 September 2026, a dollar cost R16.24. That makes a monthly-billed Business seat R406 excluding VAT. SARS levies VAT at 15%, and its guide for foreign suppliers of electronic services requires suppliers over the registration threshold to register and charge it, so the seat comes to R467 with VAT. On annual billing it's R325, or R374 with VAT.
Three more things belong in the finance file.
VAT registration changes the bill. OpenAI's billing page says a business that enters its tax ID at checkout is exempted from VAT on that purchase and on future invoices. A VAT-registered firm enters its number. A firm that isn't registered has nothing to enter, so plan on the 15% as a straight cost.
The bill is in dollars, and the exchange rate doesn't stand still. On 14 October 2025 the ECB reference rate, as published through the Frankfurter API, was R17.46 per dollar, and ten monthly-billed seats came to R4,366 excluding VAT. On 29 January 2026 the rate was R15.67, and the same ten seats cost R3,918. Same seats, same dollar price. Annual billing turns twelve conversions into one, on renewal day.
Committing is easy and undoing it isn't. Self-serve Business is paid by card, with no invoice billing, bank transfer or purchase orders, and unused seats are generally non-refundable once you commit to a seat count. If you buy fifteen annual seats on the first day, expect to pay for some logins nobody opens.
Is there a free trial?
No, not as of 23 September 2026. OpenAI's Business pricing page doesn't advertise one. The free-trial article in OpenAI's help centre covers referral invites for Plus, handed out per campaign, which renew as paid subscriptions unless you cancel. Claude's pricing page shows no trial for its Team plan either.
Both products have free tiers, and those are your trial. Put a week of your team's real tasks through them, using work with no client data in it. Then buy on monthly billing and move to annual once you know who actually uses it.
What Business adds over Plus
On annual billing, Business costs the same per seat as Plus. On monthly billing the gap is $5 per user per month.
The first thing that buys is a different default on training. On Plus, OpenAI may use conversations to improve model performance and safety unless the user opts out. Business comes with no training on your business data by default, along with SAML single sign-on, MFA, central billing and admin controls over users, roles and access.
The part a professional-services firm should weigh most is offboarding, and you'll find it in the help centre rather than on the pricing page. In Business, removing a member ends their workspace access immediately, and under an indefinite retention policy their chats, files and canvas documents are retained in the firm's workspace. A Plus account belongs to the person. When they resign, the client work in it leaves with them.
Does a 5–15 person firm need it?
It does if client information goes into prompts, or if anyone might leave in the next year.
On the first, section 19 of POPIA requires "appropriate, reasonable technical and organisational measures" to protect personal information. A privacy toggle that each employee may or may not have switched off in a personal Plus account is hard to present as an organisational measure. On the second, the account should belong to the firm.
If neither applies (say the tool only drafts marketing posts), Plus for the two or three people who use it is enough. Business doesn't need a seat for everyone either. The minimum is two seats, so buy for the people who will use them.
Claude's Team plan is the obvious alternative, and on list price there's nothing between them. Claude's pricing page puts a standard Team seat at $25 per seat per month billed monthly, or $20 per seat per month on annual billing, with a two-seat minimum, single sign-on, central billing and "no model training on your content by default". Anthropic's help centre adds role-based permissions and per-user spending caps, and notes that its listed prices are for US customers, exclude tax and vary by region. So price won't settle it. Run the same three real tasks through both free tiers and buy the one your team keeps opening.
Whose workspace your client data sits in
Wherever you find the seller, whether that's a Reddit thread, a WhatsApp group or FunPay, you get the same thing: an invite into a workspace they own. That makes them OpenAI's customer and you their end user.
OpenAI's Services Agreement is blunt about this: "Customer may not resell or lease access to its Account or any End User Account." The same agreement says the customer "retains all ownership rights in Input". Under that contract, every client file you upload is the seller's input.
The admin side is worse. OpenAI's help page on managed accounts says: "Your administrator may be able to access, export, audit, retain, delete, and opt-in to share data tied to this account with OpenAI to improve OpenAI's models." The no-training default you were paying for is the seller's to switch off. You can't take your history with you either, because self-service export is not available in Business workspaces, and the owner can remove you whenever they like.
Then there's POPIA. Section 21 requires a written contract between you and any operator that processes personal information on your behalf, and a marketplace listing is not one. I can't think of a document you could show the Information Regulator that explains why a stranger holds admin rights over your clients' records.
Whatever the discount, compare it with a legitimate seat at R374 a month including VAT on annual billing, which is what Plus costs.
What to buy
If client data goes into the chat, buy Business or Claude Team seats for the people who use it, on monthly billing, in the firm's name and on firm email addresses, with a partner as workspace owner. Move to annual after two or three months, once the seat list stops changing. If no client data goes in, Plus for the heavy users is fine.
Buying seats is the easy part. Getting a team to do real work in them is what my AI team training is for, and I run it on the tools you've already paid for.