What Can Claude's Free Plan Do? Three Tasks to Try Before Paying

TL;DR: Claude’s free plan handles chat, web search, and file creation, including Excel files. Try three work tasks for free before paying, and think about Pro only when you need to hand over a whole folder. Prices and features are based on the official pricing page as of October 16, 2026.

Contents

1. You Can Check Things for Free Before Paying
2. What the Claude Free Plan Covers
3. Three Things to Try for Free Before Paying
4. Free Limits and What Pro Unlocks
5. Deciding Whether to Pay: When You Need to Hand Over a Whole Folder
6. To Decide Further: Free Guide and Sign-Up Info
7. Summary

1. You Can Check Things for Free Before Paying

I already use GPT, and people around me say Claude is good. But I’m not sure I need it enough to pay for Pro.

This post walks through that “take a look” using the free plan.

• Check what the free plan includes on the official pricing page
• Hand Claude three of your own work tasks for free
• Learn in advance the signs that you need a paid plan

2. What the Claude Free Plan Covers

You can check Claude’s pricing on the Personal tab of claude.com/ko/pricing (the Korean-language version of Anthropic’s pricing page).

Below the pricing page, I combined the Free and Pro columns of the plan comparison table with the Cowork conditions from the help center article. Here’s the summary:

Feature	Free	Pro
Web, mobile, and desktop chat	Yes	Yes
Web search	Yes	Yes
File creation and editing via code execution	Yes	Yes
Artifacts (outputs such as web pages, documents, and charts)	Yes	Yes
Memory, connectors, voice mode	Yes	Yes
Claude Design, Slides, Docs	Yes	Yes
Projects	Up to 5	Yes
Research	No	Yes
Claude Code, Claude in Chrome	No	Yes
Cowork	No	Yes

• The basis for the Cowork row is the help center article Getting Started with Claude Cowork. Cowork is available only on paid plans (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise).
• Prices shown in the screenshot do not include tax.

3. Three Things to Try for Free Before Paying

The free plan also handles web search and file creation. So if you hand over three of your usual tasks as they are, you’ll have material to decide whether to pay.

Here are prompts you can paste as they are, along with what to check in each response.

1. Meeting notes into an action item table: “Organize the meeting notes below into a three-column table: who, what, and by when.” After you get the answer, send one more line: “Pull out only my action items.”
   • What to check: missing owners and dates
2. Email report in three lines: “Shorten the content below into a three-line report email, in this order: conclusion, reason, request.”
   • What to check: whether the conclusion is in the first line
3. Weekly work log Excel template: “Create an Excel file for a weekly work log. Columns: date, task, status. Count the items per status with formulas.”
   • What to check: whether the formulas actually calculate in the downloaded file

The third one comes back as a real Excel file. The help center article Creating and Editing Files with Claude says all users, including Free, can create Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and PDF files. If no file gets created, check in Settings under Features that the “Code execution and file creation” toggle is on.

4. Free Limits and What Pro Unlocks

The free plan has usage limits too. Here’s what the official pricing FAQ under “Plans and usage” says:

• Every plan has usage limits based on 5-hour rolling sessions (windows where usage resets every five hours), and paid plans add a weekly limit on top
• There is no fixed message count. Usage depends on conversation length and complexity, the model you choose, and the features you use
• Free handles everyday questions
• Pro gives at least 5 times more usage per 5-hour session than Free

Setting usage aside, the main features Pro newly unlocks are research, Claude Code, Claude in Chrome, and Cowork. The Pro card also lists “delegating and scheduling tasks.” Free allows up to 5 projects.

5. Deciding Whether to Pay: When You Need to Hand Over a Whole Folder

After you try the three tasks, you’ll land on one of two paths: either your work finishes within the chat, or you want to hand over an entire folder on your computer.

Handing over a whole folder is Cowork’s job. According to the help article Getting Started with Claude Cowork, Cowork can read and write files on your computer from the desktop app, and it is available only on paid plans. The same article says Cowork is now being folded into Claude and is rolling out to Pro and Max in stages. If you don’t see the name Cowork on your screen, it’s the same feature.

6. To Decide Further: Free Guide and Sign-Up Info

If you want more questions to weigh before paying, you can get the free PDF guide. It opens without signing up or entering an email address.

7. Summary

Official documentation checked: October 16, 2026. Prices, the feature comparison, and usage limits were confirmed from the price cards, the plan comparison table, and the “Plans and usage” FAQ on claude.com/ko/pricing. Cowork’s terms were confirmed from the help center article Getting Started with Claude Cowork, and file creation on the free plan from Creating and Editing Files with Claude. Plans and prices can change, so check the pricing page once more right before you pay.