Copilot or ChatGPT for your business?

The short version

Microsoft Copilot: plans and prices in Canada

Microsoft's naming changes often, but in 2026 there are three tiers that matter to a small business:

• Copilot Chat: free with eligible Microsoft 365 plans. It's grounded in the web, and works with your content only when you upload a file or have it open (for example, in Outlook). It has no automatic access to your mailbox or SharePoint.
• Copilot Business: CAD $28.50 per user per month on an annual plan, or CAD $34.20 billed monthly. A promotional price of CAD $24.43 applies to first-year annual commitments until December 31, 2026. It's for organisations under 300 users, and requires Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard or Premium (or Apps for Business, or Teams Essentials).
• Microsoft 365 Copilot (enterprise): CAD $40.70 per user per month, paid yearly. It's for larger organisations or enterprise plans.

Microsoft also sells bundles. Business Standard with Copilot is CAD $31.90 per user per month, and Business Premium with Copilot is CAD $43.40 (annual). There's no minimum seat count, so you can license just the people who'll use it.

ChatGPT: plans and prices

OpenAI prices ChatGPT in US dollars. Canadian pricing may vary by currency, so check chatgpt.com/pricing for your account.

• ChatGPT Plus: US$20/month. This is a personal plan. Don't use it for client data, because consumer plans can use chats for training unless you opt out.
• ChatGPT Business (renamed from Team in 2025): OpenAI's help centre lists Standard seats at US$20/user/month annual or US$25 monthly, with pricier Premium seats also available. It needs at least 2 seats, up to 200. It includes projects, custom GPTs, connectors, company knowledge, deep research and agent features.
• ChatGPT Enterprise: custom pricing through OpenAI's sales team.

Working with your company's data

This is the biggest practical difference.

Copilot automatically works with what's in Microsoft 365. Ask "summarise what the client said about the deadline" and it searches your email, Teams chats, meeting transcripts and files. It only sees what each user already has permission to see. That's also the risk: if your SharePoint permissions are loose, Copilot will surface files people shouldn't see. Clean up permissions before rollout.

ChatGPT connects to company data through apps: SharePoint, Google Drive, Slack, HubSpot, GitHub, Asana and more. Each person signs in with their own account, so permissions carry over. It's more flexible if your data lives in several places, but it's less woven into daily email and meetings than Copilot.

Privacy and Canadian data residency

• Training: neither Copilot nor ChatGPT's business plans (Business, Enterprise) train on your data by default. That includes data reached through connectors.
• Copilot: Microsoft's enterprise data protection covers Copilot when staff sign in with work accounts. Microsoft has announced in-country processing for Canada, expected in 2027.
• ChatGPT: Canadian data residency (storage at rest) is available on Enterprise and Edu. It isn't confirmed for Business.

For clinics and anyone handling sensitive personal information, read our guide to AI, PIPEDA and PHIA first.

Which should you choose?

Choose Copilot if your team lives in Outlook, Teams, Word and Excel; you want AI inside the tools people already use; and you're willing to tidy up file permissions first.

Choose ChatGPT Business if you use Google Workspace or a mix of tools; people do a lot of writing, research or analysis; or you want to build custom GPTs for repeatable tasks.

Plenty of businesses use both. Copilot for day-to-day email and meetings, and a few ChatGPT seats for heavier work.

Whichever you pick, licences alone rarely change much. Adoption comes from training on real tasks. That's what our Microsoft Copilot consultant work in Winnipeg focuses on.