Input cost per 1M tokens · sorted lowest first
| Model | Provider | Input /1M | Output /1M | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meta: Llama 3.1 8B InstructCheapest | Meta | $0.020 | $0.050 | Very fast |
| Mistral: Mistral Nemo | Mistral | $0.020 | $0.030 | Fast |
| Meta: Llama 3.2 1B Instruct | Meta | $0.027 | $0.200 | Very fast |
| Google: Gemma 2 9B | $0.030 | $0.090 | Very fast | |
| Meta: Llama 3 8B Instruct | Meta | $0.030 | $0.040 | Very fast |
| Mistral: Mistral Small 3 |
For casual users who don't need API access — chat interfaces with monthly plans
| Plan | Provider | Monthly cost | Models included | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ChatGPT Free | OpenAI | Free | Limited GPT-4o messages per day, then falls back to GPT-4o mini | Casual use and trying out AI for the first time |
Claude Free | Anthropic | Free | Daily message cap that resets every 24 hours | Trying Claude before committing to a subscription |
Gemini Free | Free | Rate limits apply, resets daily | Google Workspace users wanting light AI assistance | |
Meta AI Completely free |
DeepSeek V3 is the cheapest capable AI API at $0.07/1M input tokens. Gemini Flash is close behind at $0.075/1M. Both handle writing, summarisation, and coding well enough for most production use cases.
GPT-4o Mini ($0.15/1M) is worth it if you're already in the OpenAI ecosystem and want reliability and consistent structured output. Free alternatives like DeepSeek V3 (via open-source hosting) are powerful but require more infrastructure work.
At Gemini Flash pricing ($0.075/1M input), 1 million short prompts (~200 tokens each) costs around $15. At GPT-4o Mini pricing, around $30. At GPT-4o pricing, over $500. The budget tier is roughly 10–30× cheaper than frontier models.
DeepSeek V3 is open-source and free to self-host. The API from DeepSeek costs $0.07/1M input tokens — not free, but extremely cheap. Hosting it yourself (via Ollama, Together AI, or your own GPU) can reduce costs to near zero at scale.
Free AI (ChatGPT free tier, Claude.ai free, Gemini free) means a consumer chat interface with usage limits. Cheap AI refers to low-cost API access for developers — typically $0.07–$0.50/1M tokens. They serve different use cases: free tiers for occasional personal use, cheap APIs for building products.
Upgrade when the cost of bad outputs exceeds the cost of better tokens. If your cheap model is hallucinating in customer-facing workflows, causing support tickets, or requiring frequent human correction, a 10× more expensive but reliable model often works out cheaper overall.
| Mistral |
| $0.050 |
| $0.080 |
| Very fast |
| Meta |
| Free |
| Effectively unlimited for typical conversational use |
| Anyone already using Meta apps who wants free AI access built in |
Google One AI Premium Best value for Google users | $19.99/mo | High daily limits on Gemini Pro, effectively unlimited for most users | Google Workspace users and anyone needing long-context AI with 2M token window |
ChatGPT Plus Most popular | OpenAI | $20/mo | GPT-5.5 and GPT-5.4 message limits vary by plan and demand | Power users who want OpenAI's best models without paying enterprise prices |
Claude Pro Best for writing | Anthropic | $20/mo | ~45 Sonnet messages / 5 hours, ~10 Opus messages / 5 hours | Writers, researchers, and coders who need sustained daily AI usage |
Perplexity Pro Best for research | Perplexity | $20/mo | Unlimited Pro searches (free tier caps at ~5/day) | Researchers and analysts who need cited web answers daily |
API pricing is separate — see the table above for per-token costs
Compare all subscription plans →Cheap AI only matters if it still saves time. These picks focus on value per dollar across everyday prompts, lightweight coding, writing, and operational work.
Ultra-cheap multimodal model for massive-volume, low-complexity pipelines.
The top budget model stays broadly useful while keeping costs low.
Strong alternatives exist for cheap writing, coding, or long-context work.
The ranking favors practical value instead of purely theoretical token prices.
Choose the top pick when you want the broadest value per dollar.
Choose a specialist alternative if your budget work is mostly coding or mostly writing.
Choose a premium model only when low-quality output becomes more expensive than higher token cost.
Use the controls to see how the recommendation changes when your workflow shifts toward quality, cost, speed, or long-context work.
Google / Budget / May 5, 2026
Best cheap AI for broad day-to-day work — now with 1M context.
Ranks models by the broadest mix of coding, writing, research, and long-context usefulness.
You need premium reasoning depth or the highest coding benchmark scores.
One of the cheapest models in the directory at $0.10/1M input
Multimodal — handles images alongside text at this price point
Fast and efficient for simple, well-defined tasks
Weak on complex reasoning, hard coding, and nuanced writing
Not suitable for tasks requiring deep context retention or multi-step logic
Strong backups depending on your budget, workload, and preferred tradeoffs.
Fast, low-cost model with a 1M token context window — the best budget default for teams running high prompt volumes.
UseRightAI recommendations are based on practical decision factors people actually feel in day-to-day use.
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Mistral Small 3.1 is the current top recommendation because it delivers the strongest mix of fit, output quality, and practical usefulness for this category.
Mistral Small 3.1 is the strongest lower-cost alternative when you want better value without dropping all the way down in usefulness.
Choose the top pick when you want the safest default. Choose an alternative when your priority shifts toward cost, speed, context window, or a more specialized workflow fit.
Mistral Small 3.1 is the cheapest strong alternative here if you want better value without dropping to a weak default.
Limited to simpler use cases compared to Codestral or DeepSeek V3
Llama 3.2 1B Instruct is Meta's smallest production language model, designed for lightweight text tasks with an extremely low cost footprint. It excels at simple instruction-following, text classification, and on-device or edge deployment scenarios.
Open-source frontier model from DeepSeek that matches GPT-4o class performance at a fraction of the cost — the most disruptive budget option for coding and general tasks.
Gemini 2.0 Flash Lite is Google's ultra-budget, high-speed model designed for high-volume, cost-sensitive applications. It sits below Gemini 2.0 Flash in capability but offers the lowest price point in the Gemini 2.0 family with a massive 1M token context window.
