See what you pay, what context you get, and where the best value lives for coding, writing, and high-volume usage.
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If you want the shortest pricing answer, start with Mistral Small 3.1 for the best value default. Use Mistral Small 3.1 only when raw lowest API price matters more than output quality.
Cheap does not automatically mean efficient. The real pricing decision is whether lower token cost saves more money than the extra review, rewrites, or mistakes it creates.
This page compares raw cost, context, and practical usefulness so you can avoid false-economy pricing decisions.
The safest value pick, the raw cheapest API, and the fast default worth considering before you optimize around price alone.
Mistral Small 3.1 is the best price-to-usefulness default for most teams.
Mistral Small 3.1 is the lowest-cost option by list price, but it is not automatically the best low-cost decision.
Claude 4 Haiku is the better pick when low latency matters almost as much as low spend.
This table focuses on the pricing decisions teams actually make first: best value default, absolute cheapest option, budget coding pick, and a fast low-cost option.
Ultra-cheap multimodal model for massive-volume, low-complexity pipelines.
Strong coding value with 2M context — an underrated pick at this price.
Best low-cost writing option for fast-moving content teams.
Use this section to decide whether you should optimize for raw API cost, value per prompt, cheaper coding throughput, or faster user-facing response time.
Ultra-cheap multimodal model for massive-volume, low-complexity pipelines.
Ultra-high-volume classification, summarisation, and lightweight vision tasks
You need reliable multi-step reasoning or coding quality — it won't hold up.
Ultra-cheap multimodal model for massive-volume, low-complexity pipelines.
Ultra-high-volume classification, summarisation, and lightweight vision tasks
You need reliable multi-step reasoning or coding quality — it won't hold up.
Strong coding value with 2M context — an underrated pick at this price.
Coding and research at competitive pricing with maximum context
You need the highest writing quality or the most reliable production-grade output — Claude wins both.
Best low-cost writing option for fast-moving content teams.
Fast budget writing, support automation, and cost-sensitive Anthropic integrations
Cost is your only concern — Gemini 3.1 Flash offers similar value with a larger context window.
Pricing recommendations are based on a mix of list price, real-world usefulness, speed, context window, and whether a lower-cost model still holds up under practical workloads.
Benchmark scores from SWE-bench (coding), ARC-AGI-2 (reasoning), and MMLU (knowledge breadth) — cross-referenced against Chatbot Arena community votes to filter out cherry-picked provider claims.
Input and output costs verified directly against each provider's official API pricing page. Updated whenever a price change is detected. Value-per-dollar is weighted separately from raw benchmark rank.
Advertised context sizes are noted but scored against real-world usability — models that degrade significantly at large contexts are penalised even if the window is technically available.
Production signals matter more than lab scores. We weight Cursor and Windsurf defaults, HackerNews sentiment, developer surveys, and which models teams actually keep using after the honeymoon period.
One-off wins on cherry-picked benchmarks don't move our rankings. We favour models that stay dependable across repeated prompts, diverse task types, and long sessions without degrading.
Time-to-first-token and output throughput from Artificial Analysis speed benchmarks. Latency is categorised from Very fast to Deliberate — relevant when building interactive or high-throughput products.
Data sources
See your monthly API cost vs consumer subscription across all models.
600 input + 700 output tokens
| Model | Monthly API cost | Annual API cost | vs Subscription |
|---|---|---|---|
MistralMistral Small 3.1 | $0.40 | $4.86 | API only |
OpenAIGPT-4o Mini | $0.76 | $9.18 | API cheaper Sub wins at 39,216 msg/mo |
DeepSeekDeepSeek V3 | $1.40 | $16.78 | API only |
MetaLlama 4 Scout | $1.71 | $20.52 | Free via Meta AI |
MetaLlama 4 Maverick | $2.22 | $26.64 | Free via Meta AI |
DeepSeekDeepSeek R1 | $2.79 | $33.53 | API only |
API costs are estimates based on the token counts above and listed per-million-token prices from each provider. Subscription plans include usage caps and may not cover all models — check provider pages for current limits. Prices update from our database when providers change their rates.
Compare 23 models by cost profile, provider, and context.
At $0.10/1M input, the cost question disappears. The only question is whether the task complexity exceeds what Mistral Small can handle.
GPT-4o Mini punches well above its price for classification, summarisation, and simple writing. It struggles when tasks get complex.
DeepSeek V3 shocked the market on release. At this price point with this capability level, it forces a reconsideration of when premium models are actually worth it.
Worth considering for internal search, analysis, and review workflows where data sovereignty matters.
Strong strategic fit for teams thinking about data sovereignty or custom fine-tuning.
R1 is a genuine milestone for open-source AI. The reasoning quality is real — the tradeoff is latency, not capability.
The default budget pick for startups watching cost. The 1M context at this price is unmatched.
Ideal for teams running thousands of daily coding prompts where premium model costs add up quickly.
Great for drafts, rewrites, and quick-turn internal workflows where Anthropic's tone quality matters.
Best when you specifically need an OpenAI model in your stack.
Best when you want near-flagship coding quality with a massive context window at a mid-tier price.
The EU hosting angle is the real differentiator here — for teams outside Europe, other models perform better.
The 2M context window is a genuine competitive advantage — no other frontier model gets close for document-heavy workflows.
Unique value is the computer-use capability. If you're building agents that operate software, nothing else compares right now.
Powers Cursor and Windsurf by default. If your team already uses either, you're already using this model.
Strong when your work lives between visuals, messaging, and product context.
Launched May 27, 2026. Available on Claude API, AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, Microsoft Foundry, and GitHub Copilot. Fast mode available at $10/$50 per 1M tokens.
Use Opus 4.8 for all new work. Opus 4.7 remains available for pinned API integrations.
Ranked from public benchmark and pricing data verified April 26, 2026: SWE-Bench Pro 58.6%, Terminal-Bench 2.0 82.7%, $5/$30 per 1M tokens, 1M API context.
Worth considering only if you have existing integrations built around this model.
Launched June 9, 2026 as the public, Mythos-class release. Available on the Claude API, Microsoft Foundry, and Google Vertex AI. Free for all users until June 22, 2026. Same underlying model as Claude Mythos 5, with safeguards that block specific high-risk cyber responses.
Launched June 9, 2026 alongside Fable 5, following the April Project Glasswing private preview on Google Cloud. Restricted to vetted enterprise and research partners due to advanced cybersecurity capabilities. Same underlying model and benchmarks as Claude Fable 5.
Keep for legacy comparisons and pinned integrations. New premium coding workflows should evaluate Opus 4.7 first.
Reserved for future partners around monitoring, optimization, procurement, and evaluation.
The AI-native editor most developers switch to when they want GPT-4 and Claude working inside their actual codebase — not a chat window next to it.
The fastest way to get a sourced, current answer to any question. Pairs well with longer-form AI tools — use it to verify, then use Claude or GPT to synthesize.
One API key to access GPT-5, Claude 4, Gemini, Llama, and 100+ other models. Ideal for developers who want to switch models without rewriting integration code.
These tools are independently recommended based on real-world fit with the models on this site. Links may include affiliate or referral tracking — see our disclosures.
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Mistral Small 3.1 is the cheapest raw API option in the current directory, but Mistral Small 3.1 is the better cheap default for most teams.
Mistral Small 3.1 is the best cheap AI API here because it balances low cost, high speed, and broad usefulness better than the absolute cheapest options.
Pay for a premium model when quality failures create expensive rework, missed edge cases, or costly downstream mistakes. Premium models rarely make sense for low-stakes high-volume prompts.
Grok 4 is the strongest budget coding specialist in the directory, while Mistral Small 3.1 is the better low-cost generalist if the work extends beyond pure coding.
