Is free ChatGPT good enough for everyday use?

For light use, yes. The free plan gives unlimited everyday text chats on GPT-6 Luna, but its default model holds only about 27,000 tokens (roughly 12 pages) of a conversation, and the plan may show ads (OpenAI pricing page, October 2026).

Is the DeepSeek app safe for a beginner to use?

DeepSeek's models are strong and its app is free, but its privacy policy (10 February 2026) says personal data is stored in China and chats may be used to train its models. Opting out means emailing privacy@deepseek.com, so keep anything sensitive out of it.

Can an AI app read a photo of a letter or a bill?

Yes. ChatGPT, Claude and Plainly all accept photos, and Plainly takes up to 4 per message. Ask what the letter wants you to do and by when, then check any amounts and dates against the paper itself.

What should you never type into an AI chat?

Passwords, full card or bank account numbers, and government ID numbers such as a Social Security number. ChatGPT, Claude and DeepSeek can all use chats for training unless you opt out, so treat a chat like an email to a company.

How much does an AI subscription cost per month?

ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini all have free plans. Budget apps cost about $5 a month, ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro cost $20, and heavy-use plans such as Claude Max 5x and ChatGPT Pro start at $100 (pricing pages, October 2026).

Best AI app for beginners, and how to set it up

Which AI app to give a beginner: free ChatGPT, a $5 app or a $20 plan, depending on the person. Plus a five-minute setup and first prompts to try.

What is the best AI app for a beginner?

For a curious beginner, free ChatGPT is the best place to start: it's the best-known app, and everyday chats on the free plan are unlimited. If they end up using it daily and want no ads, a $5 app is the better buy. A $20 plan pays off when work or programming depends on it.

The right pick depends on the person, so the table below matches the app to the friend. After it come a five-minute setup, the first things to ask, and the mistakes beginners commonly make.

I built one of the apps in the table, so weigh my view with that in mind. Plainly started with this question. When DeepSeek's open models got good, I wanted to hand them to non-technical friends who were never going to spend much on AI, and I couldn't find a clean, cheap app to send them to. DeepSeek had great models and, to my mind, no good website to point a friend at, and everything else was built for technically adept people.

Which AI to recommend, depending on the friend

Prices are US list prices from each provider's pricing page, checked in October 2026.

Your friend	Recommend	Price	What they get	The catch
Curious, asks a few things a week	ChatGPT Free	$0	The smoothest, best-known app; unlimited everyday text chats	Smaller model (GPT-6 Luna), a short memory of about 12 pages, may show ads, trains on chats unless switched off
Uses it most days for everyday life, wants no ads	A $5 app, such as Plainly	$5/month	No ads, a capable open-source model, unlimited chat	Fewer features: Plainly has no image generation, no voice mode, no phone app
Uses it a little but wants a top model	Claude Pro	$20/month ($17 billed yearly)	Anthropic's frontier models, no ads	A usage limit per 5-hour session that heavy users hit
Programs, or their work pays for it	ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro	$20/month	Frontier models plus coding tools (Codex, Claude Code)	$20 a month, and Claude's usage limit
Uses it all day for work	Claude Max 5x or ChatGPT Pro	from $100/month	Much more usage on the top models	The price
Cares most about privacy	Duck.ai, Plainly, or ChatGPT/Claude with training off	$0 to $5	Chats kept out of model training	Duck.ai's free models are smaller

A curious friend: start with free ChatGPT

Free ChatGPT is the easiest recommendation for someone who wants to see what AI is. The app is polished and familiar, and OpenAI's pricing page (October 2026) lists everyday text chats as unlimited on the free plan.

The limits sit somewhere else. The free plan runs GPT-6 Luna, OpenAI's smaller model, and the default mode holds about 27,000 tokens of conversation, roughly 12 pages. Past that, a long chat starts losing the details from its start. The free plan may also show ads. When OpenAI started testing ads in February 2026, it let free users switch them off in exchange for fewer daily messages (Search Engine Journal, 9 February 2026).

Steer them away from ChatGPT Go at $8 a month. In my view it's a bad tier: it still carries ads and runs the same smaller model, and its default memory only grows to about 40 pages. I get Go through my Revolut subscription, and mid-task it lost things I'd told it earlier in the same chat. The full case is in is ChatGPT Go worth it.

A daily user who wants no ads: a $5 app

Once the curious friend starts asking things most days, the gaps in a free plan start to matter, mainly the short memory and the ads. A $5 app removes the ads, and Plainly keeps long chats working.

Plainly is the one I built, so here are its facts and you can judge. It costs $5 a month for unlimited chat, with no ads. It searches the web when a question needs current information and links the sources it used, reads documents and photos, and runs in the browser with Google sign-in, so there's nothing to install. Plainly runs one capable open-source model and switches when a better one comes out. You never pick. It has no image generation, no voice mode and no memory between chats. Other options at this price are compared in the best cheap ChatGPT alternatives.

A friend whose work depends on it: a $20 or $100 plan

If your friend writes code, or uses AI for work their income depends on, the $20 frontier plans earn their price. ChatGPT Plus adds OpenAI's top models (GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Astra), no ads, deep research and Codex. Claude Pro gives Opus, Sonnet and Haiku plus Claude Code, and Anthropic pledged in February 2026 to keep Claude ad-free. Fable, Anthropic's top model, costs extra on Pro through usage credits.

My rule for ChatGPT Plus: it's worth it if you program, if your work pays for it, or if you use it professionally. Otherwise you don't need to pay. Claude Pro is a good pick for someone who uses AI a little and wants a top model. It gives at least five times the free plan's usage per 5-hour session (claude.com/pricing, October 2026), and heavy users run into that limit. On Pro, my friends and I always ran out. I now pay $100 a month for Claude Max 5x and still hit its limit, which is why I'd only point someone at the $100 plans if AI is most of their working day. The limit mechanics are in Claude Pro usage limits.

A privacy-minded friend: the options

Every option here keeps chats out of model training. They differ in price and in how strong the model is.

Duck.ai is free. DuckDuckGo strips identifying details before a chat reaches the model provider, and chats aren't used for training. The providers agree to delete prompts and replies once the answer is sent, with narrow exceptions (DuckDuckGo help pages, October 2026). The free models are the smaller ones, such as Claude Haiku 4.5 and Mistral Small 4.
Plainly costs $5 a month. Chats are never used to train AI, and the privacy page says: "We do not read your chats unless you ask us to or the law requires it." Some of the model hosts keep prompts for a period, so Plainly doesn't promise zero retention. Details are in does Plainly train on your chats.
ChatGPT or Claude, with training switched off. ChatGPT trains on chats by default on every plan, with an opt-out in settings (OpenAI pricing page, October 2026). Claude's Incognito chats are never used for training, even when the model-improvement setting is on (Anthropic privacy center, March 2026).

Keep this friend off DeepSeek's own app and website. Its privacy policy (10 February 2026) says personal data is stored in China and chats may be used for training, and the opt-out is an email to privacy@deepseek.com. I've only used DeepSeek's website, never its phone app.

How to set them up in five minutes

Do this together, on their phone or laptop, so the first question happens while you're there.

Open the app or site you picked and sign in. ChatGPT and Claude have phone apps; Plainly runs in the browser and signs in with a Google account.
If it's a browser app, put it on the home screen. On an iPhone, open the site in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. On Android, open it in Chrome, tap the menu, then Add to Home screen.
Set privacy before the first chat. In ChatGPT, turn off "Improve the model for everyone" under Settings, then Data controls. In Claude, check the model-improvement setting under privacy.
Have them ask one real question from their own week, typed the way they'd say it out loud.
Show them the follow-up. Replying "shorter", "explain that more simply" or "what should I double-check?" improves most answers.
Show them the new-chat button, and tell them to start a fresh chat for each new topic.

What to ask first: example prompts

A first question from their own life lands better than a demo. These work in any of the apps above.

If they want to...	Have them type
Understand a letter or bill	"Here's a photo of a letter from my insurer. What is it asking me to do, by when, and what happens if I don't?"
Write a tricky message	"Write a short, friendly text asking my neighbor to stop parking across my driveway. Keep it polite but clear."
Cook with what's in the fridge	"I have chicken thighs, rice, spinach, a lemon and garlic. What can I make in 30 minutes?"
Plan a trip	"Plan three days in Chicago for two adults in May, about $600 to spend, no car, and we like food and museums."
Learn something	"Explain what an index fund is as if I've never invested. Then tell me what questions I should ask before buying one."
Get a second opinion	"My landlord wants to raise rent 15%. What are the usual rules on this in Ohio, and what should I check before I reply?"

The last two are where a beginner should learn to ask for sources and check the answer, which leads to the mistakes below.

Mistakes beginners make

Typing search keywords. "Rent increase Ohio" gets a generic answer. A full sentence with their situation gets a useful one, so encourage them to write the way they'd explain it to a person.

Taking the first answer as final. The first reply is a draft. Most of the value comes from the second and third message: "that's too formal", "I forgot to say it's for my boss", "give me two shorter options".

Trusting a confident answer they're about to act on. AI states wrong things in the same calm tone as right ones. For a health or money question, have them ask for sources and open the links, and check with a professional when the stakes are real. Plainly and ChatGPT can both search the web and link what they used.

Pasting private details. Passwords, card numbers, bank details and ID numbers never belong in a chat.

Keeping one chat going forever. On free ChatGPT the default model holds about 12 pages of conversation, so a long chat loses its early details. A fresh chat per topic avoids most of it. If words like "tokens" or "context window" come up, the plain-English AI glossary explains them.

Paying too early. A friend who asks three questions a week doesn't need a subscription. Start free, and upgrade when the free plan gets in the way. Free vs $5 vs $20 lays out where each step up starts paying for itself, and the best AI apps ranks the main options side by side.

Where Plainly fits

Plainly is the $5 row in the table: for the friend who now asks something most days and wants no ads, with no model to choose. It costs $5 a month for unlimited chat, new accounts can ask a limited amount free each month, and any subscriber can send a friend a link for a free month from settings. If your friend writes code or needs the strongest model for work, point them at a $20 plan instead.