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MetaBudget

Llama 4 Scout

Best open-weight long-context option for self-hosted pipelines.

Coding

Writing

Research

Images

Value

Long Context

Use this when

Affordable self-hosted long-context workflows and analysis pipelines

Skip this if

You want a hosted solution — Gemini 3.1 Flash gives more context for roughly the same cost.

Pricing

$0.10/1M in

$0.30/1M out

↓80%since May 2026

Context

512k tokens

Speed

Fast

Worth considering for internal search, analysis, and review workflows where data sovereignty matters.

How to access

API

$0.09999999999999999/1M input tokens

Subscription = chat interface. API = build with it. Compare all subscription plans

Switch to instead if...

Best overall

Claude Fable 5

Cheaper option

Mistral: Mistral Nemo

Faster option

Anthropic: Claude 3.5 Haiku

Strengths

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

Weaknesses

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

Real-world use cases

What people actually use Llama 4 Scout for.

Processing large internal document archives in self-hosted analysis pipelines

Long-context retrieval across large codebases with open weights and full data control

Budget-conscious long-context tasks where cloud API costs are prohibitive

Price History

Llama 4 Scout pricing over time

↓80% since May 8

82 data points · tracked daily since May 8, 2026

Ready to try it?

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Affordable self-hosted long-context workflows and analysis pipelines. Start free — no card required.

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Recommendations are made independently based on real-world use and public benchmarks. See our disclosures for details.

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Similar models worth checking before you commit.

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MetaBudget

Meta: Llama 3.1 70B Instruct

Meta's Llama 3.1 70B Instruct is a open-weight large language model with 70 billion parameters, fine-tuned for instruction following across coding, reasoning, and general-purpose tasks. It offers a strong balance of capability and cost at $0.40/1M tokens for both input and output.

Verdict

The go-to budget open-weight model for teams who need solid LLM capability without frontier model pricing.

Quality score

65%

Pricing

$0.40/1M in

$0.40/1M out

Speed

Fast

Best for teams needing capable open-weight llm performance at budget pricing for coding assistance, summarization, or rag pipelines.

Context

131k tokens

Pricing shown is via third-party API providers (e.g., OpenRouter, Together AI) — costs may vary. Meta releases Llama 3.1 weights publicly, enabling self-hosting at even lower cost. Not available directly from Meta as a hosted API.

Open-weightBudgetInstruction-tunedLong contextSelf-hostable

Best for

Teams needing capable open-weight LLM performance at budget pricing for coding assistance, summarization, or RAG pipelines.

View model

AnthropicBalanced

Anthropic: Claude 3.5 Haiku

Claude 3.5 Haiku is Anthropic's fastest and most affordable model in the Claude 3.5 family, designed for high-throughput tasks requiring quick responses without sacrificing Claude's core instruction-following quality. It handles a massive 200K context window while maintaining speed suitable for production pipelines.

Verdict

The fastest way to get Claude's quality in production — just don't confuse 'fast' with 'cheap'.

Quality score

64%

Pricing

$0.80/1M in

$4.00/1M out

Speed

Very fast

Best for high-volume, latency-sensitive applications like chatbots, classification, data extraction, and agentic tool use where speed and cost matter more than peak reasoning depth.

Context

200k tokens

Output cost of $4/1M is notably higher than competing fast/mini models. Input cost at ~$0.80/1M is competitive. Best value emerges in input-heavy pipelines like document classification or RAG retrieval where output tokens are minimal.

FastLong ContextBudget-FriendlyClaude FamilyAgentic

Best for

High-volume, latency-sensitive applications like chatbots, classification, data extraction, and agentic tool use where speed and cost matter more than peak reasoning depth.

View model

GoogleBudget

Gemma 4 26B A4B

Gemma 4 26B A4B is a sparse mixture-of-experts open model from Google, activating only ~4B parameters per forward pass despite having 26B total parameters. It offers a 262K context window at budget pricing, making it one of the more capable open-weight models for its cost tier.

Verdict

A lean, fast, and surprisingly capable budget model best suited for high-volume text tasks where cost efficiency trumps peak quality.

Quality score

59%

Pricing

$0.13/1M in

$0.40/1M out

Speed

Fast

Best for cost-sensitive applications needing long-context processing with reasonable quality, such as document summarization pipelines or lightweight coding assistants.

Context

262k tokens

As an open-weight model, Gemma 4 26B can also be self-hosted, making API pricing largely irrelevant at scale. The 'A4B' suffix denotes the active parameter count in its MoE configuration. Listed as superseding Gemini 3 Flash Preview, though Gemini 2.0 Flash remains a stronger hosted alternative.

Open-weightBudgetMoELong ContextGoogle

Best for

Cost-sensitive applications needing long-context processing with reasonable quality, such as document summarization pipelines or lightweight coding assistants.

View model

Llama 4 Scout head-to-head

All Llama 4 Scout alternatives →Claude 4 Haiku vs Llama 4 Scout →GPT-5.2 Mini vs Llama 4 Scout →GPT-4o Mini vs Llama 4 Scout →Mistral Small 3.1 vs Llama 4 Scout →Gemini 3.1 Flash vs Llama 4 Scout →Llama 4 Maverick vs Llama 4 Scout →Llama 4 Scout vs DeepSeek V3 →View benchmark scores →

Change history

Pricing moves, ranking shifts, and capability updates.

PricingJun 8, 2026

Llama 4 Scout — input price increase

Llama 4 Scout input pricing changed from $0.08/1M to $0.10/1M (↑ more expensive, 25% increase).

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PricingMay 9, 2026

Llama 4 Scout — output price cut

Llama 4 Scout output pricing changed from $1.20/1M to $0.30/1M (↓ cheaper, 75% cut).

View model

PricingMay 9, 2026

Llama 4 Scout — input price cut

Llama 4 Scout input pricing changed from $0.50/1M to $0.08/1M (↓ cheaper, 84% cut).

View model

PricingMar 27, 2026

Llama 4 Scout — output price cut

Llama 4 Scout output pricing changed from $1.20/1M to $0.30/1M (↓ cheaper, 75% cut).

View model

PricingMar 27, 2026

Llama 4 Scout — input price cut

Llama 4 Scout input pricing changed from $0.50/1M to $0.08/1M (↓ cheaper, 84% cut).

View model

PricingMar 14, 2026

Llama 4 Scout value tier revised

Scout moved into the stronger value tier after comparing affordable long-context options.

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FAQ

What is Llama 4 Scout best for?

Llama 4 Scout is best for affordable self-hosted long-context workflows and analysis pipelines. It is a strong fit when that workflow matters more than the tradeoffs around budget pricing and fast speed.

When should I avoid Llama 4 Scout?

You want a hosted solution — Gemini 3.1 Flash gives more context for roughly the same cost.

What is a cheaper alternative to Llama 4 Scout?

Mistral: Mistral Nemo is the lower-cost option to compare first when you want a similar workflow fit with less token spend.

What is a faster alternative to Llama 4 Scout?

Anthropic: Claude 3.5 Haiku is the better pick when response time matters more than maximum depth or premium quality.

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Llama 4 Scout

Best open-weight long-context option for self-hosted pipelines.

Coding

Writing

Research

Images

Value

Long Context

Use this when

Affordable self-hosted long-context workflows and analysis pipelines

Skip this if

You want a hosted solution — Gemini 3.1 Flash gives more context for roughly the same cost.

Pricing

$0.10/1M in

$0.30/1M out

↓80%since May 2026

Context

512k tokens

Speed

Fast

Worth considering for internal search, analysis, and review workflows where data sovereignty matters.

How to access

API

$0.09999999999999999/1M input tokens

Subscription = chat interface. API = build with it. Compare all subscription plans

FAQ

What is Llama 4 Scout best for?

When should I avoid Llama 4 Scout?

You want a hosted solution — Gemini 3.1 Flash gives more context for roughly the same cost.

What is a cheaper alternative to Llama 4 Scout?

Mistral: Mistral Nemo is the lower-cost option to compare first when you want a similar workflow fit with less token spend.

What is a faster alternative to Llama 4 Scout?

Anthropic: Claude 3.5 Haiku is the better pick when response time matters more than maximum depth or premium quality.

Llama 4 Scout

Strengths

Weaknesses

Real-world use cases

Llama 4 Scout pricing over time

Start using Llama 4 Scout

Compare alternatives

Meta: Llama 3.1 70B Instruct

Anthropic: Claude 3.5 Haiku

Gemma 4 26B A4B

Llama 4 Scout head-to-head

Change history

Llama 4 Scout — input price increase

Llama 4 Scout — output price cut

Llama 4 Scout — input price cut

Llama 4 Scout — output price cut

Llama 4 Scout — input price cut

Llama 4 Scout value tier revised

FAQ

What is Llama 4 Scout best for?

When should I avoid Llama 4 Scout?

What is a cheaper alternative to Llama 4 Scout?

What is a faster alternative to Llama 4 Scout?

Get notified when Llama 4 Scout pricing changes

Llama 4 Scout

Strengths

Weaknesses

Real-world use cases

Llama 4 Scout pricing over time

Start using Llama 4 Scout

Compare alternatives

Meta: Llama 3.1 70B Instruct

Anthropic: Claude 3.5 Haiku

Gemma 4 26B A4B

Llama 4 Scout head-to-head

Change history

Llama 4 Scout — input price increase

Llama 4 Scout — output price cut

Llama 4 Scout — input price cut

Llama 4 Scout — output price cut

Llama 4 Scout — input price cut

Llama 4 Scout value tier revised

FAQ

What is Llama 4 Scout best for?

When should I avoid Llama 4 Scout?

What is a cheaper alternative to Llama 4 Scout?

What is a faster alternative to Llama 4 Scout?

User reviews

Get notified when Llama 4 Scout pricing changes

User reviews