Llama 4 Scout is Meta's cheapest model at $0.5/1M input tokens — 17% less than the flagship Llama 4 Maverick. It is also the best capability-per-dollar pick in the lineup.
The shortest way to see the safest default, the lower-cost option, and the specialist pick before you read deeper.
Llama 4 Scout is the safest overall answer here when you want the strongest default instead of the lowest list price.
Mistral: Mistral Nemo is the lower-cost option to start with when you still need useful output at scale.
Llama 4 Maverick is the better pick when response speed matters more than maximum reasoning depth.
Llama 4 Scout is the lowest-cost Meta model: $0.5/1M input, $1.2/1M output.
Llama 4 Scout is the best capability-per-dollar pick (budget score 86/100).
Llama 4 Maverick costs 1x more on input — reserve it for work where quality is the bottleneck.
Choose Llama 4 Scout for high-volume, low-stakes tasks like classification, extraction, and drafts.
Choose Llama 4 Scout as the everyday default if you want one budget model.
Route only the hardest tasks to Llama 4 Maverick — a two-tier setup usually cuts spend 60–80%.
Switch the scoring lens to see whether the top answer changes when you care more about cost, speed, or long-document work.
Meta / Budget / Jun 8, 2026
Best open-weight long-context option for self-hosted pipelines.
Ranks models by the broadest mix of coding, writing, research, and long-context usefulness.
You want a hosted solution — Gemini 3.1 Flash gives more context for roughly the same cost.
The fastest way to see where the recommendation shifts when your priority changes.
Best open-weight long-context option for self-hosted pipelines.
Best flexible option for teams that need open-weight portability.
512K context window at the lowest cost point in the directory
Good for internal analysis pipelines and document processing
Open weights give you full control over deployment
Less polished than hosted frontier models on nuanced tasks
Gemini 3.1 Flash now offers 1M context at only $0.50/1M — bigger and hosted
UseRightAI recommendations are based on practical decision factors people actually feel in day-to-day use.
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Llama 4 Scout at $0.5/1M input and $1.2/1M output tokens. Best open-weight long-context option for self-hosted pipelines.
Llama 4 Scout is the best capability-per-dollar pick in Meta's lineup (budget score 86/100). It handles affordable self-hosted long-context workflows and analysis pipelines well — step up to Llama 4 Maverick only where quality visibly falls short.
Llama 4 Scout costs $0.5/1M input vs $0.6/1M for Llama 4 Maverick — a 17% saving on input tokens.
Llama 4 Scout — 512K tokens at $0.5/1M input.