Which models to use (not free ChatGPT)

Free: Gemini 2.5 Pro > Claude 4 Sonnet > ChatGPT. Paid: ChatGPT o3 > Claude 4 Opus > Gemini 2.5 Pro > Claude 4 Sonnet.

Summary: Don’t use free ChatGPT (except for images and voice mode). If you’re only using free accounts, use Gemini 2.5 Pro then Claude 4 Sonnet and only then go to ChatGPT. If you have a paid ChatGPT account, then use ChatGPT o3, then 4.5 before any of the others. If you have a paid Claude account, use Opus 4. More details below.

In April, I wrote:

I’m going to stop writing articles about which model is good or bad, and instead shift focus to writing about use cases: interesting ways in which to use Gen AI

because

new models are being released so fast that sometimes such advice becomes outdated in days and any such advice older than a few weeks should be considered suspect.

However, I’m forced to write such an article again because people are using free ChatGPT, which gives them ChatGPT 4o, and for most cases, 4o is not a good model.

What should you use instead?

With Paid Account(s)

My primary recommendation is that you should pay the ₹2000 per month for ChatGPT (or Claude or Gemini). With paid

If you need to create images or use voice mode, use ChatGPT 4o.

Otherwise, (with a paid ChatGPT account) use ChatGPT o3 until you run out of your weekly credits.

Then, (with a paid Claude account) switch to Claude 4 Opus until you run out of your Opus credits.

Then, switch to Gemini 2.5 Pro (limited availability with a free account).

After that, go to Claude 4 Sonnet.

Only then use 4o.

I haven’t use Grok 4 as it is only available with a paid account, and so far whatever I’ve heard doesn’t inspire me to use it.

With Free Accounts

If you need to create images or voice mode, use ChatGPT 4o.

Otherwise, if you have a simple question and would like a quick answer, use ChatGPT 4o.

Then, switch to Gemini 2.5 Pro (limited availability with a free account).

After that, go to Claude 4 Sonnet (limited availability with a free account).

Only then use 4o.

At this point, I don’t recommend Grok 3 (available for free): it hallucinates much more than the others.

Much More Detail

TheZvi has a post with much more detail on why the different models exist, what are their purposes, what are the strengths and weaknesses of each, and his recommendations of what you should use (mostly similar to what I have given above with a few minor differences). See his full article.