PRICE THE WORK, NOT THE HYPE.

Know what it costs.

One workload, applied consistently across documented API prices.

Monthly rangeLowestFreeDots3-Note PreviewHighest$27,000o1-pro

Per month at your workload, lowest to highest listed price

Median estimate$61.10/ mo

Middle of 276 prices

Comparable prices276of 483

207 excluded — see why

Highest saved task fit85.4/ 100

Claude Fable 5.1

AssumptionsVolume100 / monthTokens1,000,000 in · 200,000 outPrompt16,000 / requestCached70% inputPricesverified onlyScopetext tokensEdit on the left; every figure follows.
Task fit × monthly costEditorial task fit, 0–100 (higher is better) against monthly cost in USD (log scale, lower is better). 28 scored models with an eligible price. Hover a point or a table row to link them.
60657075808590$20$50$100$200$500$1k↑ Task fit (0–100)Monthly cost (USD, log scale) →Gemini 3.6 Flash · 73.7 editorial fit · $102.75/monthGemini 3.7 Flash · 78.3 editorial fit · $102.75/monthGemini 3.8 Flash · 76.9 editorial fit · $102.75/monthQwen3.8-27B · 75.5 editorial fit · $110.00/monthGLM-5.2 · 75 editorial fit · $148.20/monthGLM-5.3 · 81.7 editorial fit · $148.20/monthGrok 4.5 · 74.9 editorial fit · $201.00/monthGrok 4.6 · 76.6 editorial fit · $215.00/monthClaude Sonnet 5 · 74.2 editorial fit · $274.00/monthGPT-5.6 Terra · 72.1 editorial fit · $314.00/monthQwen3.8 Max 0902 · 82 editorial fit · $320.00/monthQwen3.7 Max · 74.7 editorial fit · $400.00/monthClaude Sonnet 4.6 · 70.7 editorial fit · $411.00/monthGPT-5.6 Sol · 77.6 editorial fit · $548.00/monthClaude Opus 4.7 · 74.3 editorial fit · $685.00/monthClaude Opus 4.8 · 75.2 editorial fit · $685.00/monthGPT-5.5 · 66.6 editorial fit · $785.00/monthClaude Fable 5 · 78.9 editorial fit · $1,370.00/monthGPT-6 Astra · 82.4 editorial fit · $1,370.00/monthClaude Fable 5.1 · 85.4 editorial fit · $1,317.50/monthClaude Opus 5 · 84 editorial fit · $685.00/monthKimi K3 · 83.9 editorial fit · $411.00/monthMuse Spark 1.3 · 82.4 editorial fit · $133.00/monthDeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 · 79.7 editorial fit · $121.88/monthTencent Hy4 preview · 79.1 editorial fit · $77.98/monthDeepSeek V4 Flash · 77 editorial fit · $40.58/monthGPT-5.6 Luna · 72.5 editorial fit · $31.40/monthTencent Hy3 · 65.6 editorial fit · $16.83/monthGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 3.7 FlashGemini 3.8 FlashQwen3.8-27BGLM-5.2GLM-5.3Grok 4.5Grok 4.6Claude Sonnet 5GPT-5.6 TerraQwen3.8 Max 0902Qwen3.7 MaxClaude Sonnet 4.6GPT-5.6 SolClaude Opus 4.7Claude Opus 4.8GPT-5.5Claude Fable 5GPT-6 AstraClaude Fable 5.1Claude Opus 5Kimi K3Muse Spark 1.3DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813Tencent Hy4 previewDeepSeek V4 FlashGPT-5.6 LunaTencent Hy3
  • Frontier: no alternative with equal-or-higher fit at equal-or-lower cost
  • Other scored models with an eligible price

9 choices sit on that frontier. Axes are trimmed to the data (fit 60–90); unscored models are excluded from the plot, not from the catalogue or the price table.

Workload cost comparison 276 models

Lowest monthly cost first
ModelPer workloadPer monthTask fitPrice basisSelect
Dots3-Note PreviewDots StudioFreeFreen.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
GLM 4.7 FlashZ.aiFreeFreen.a.verifiedSep 8, 2026
LFM2.5-2.6BLiquidAIFreeFreen.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
Ling 3.0 Flash SanteinclusionAIFreeFreen.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
Nemotron 3 Nano OmniNVIDIAFreeFreen.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
Nex-N2.5-MiniNex AGIFreeFreen.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
Nex-N2.5-ProNex AGIFreeFreen.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
North Mini CodeCohereFreeFreen.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
Ling 3.0 FlashinclusionAI$0.02$2.18n.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
Mistral NemoMistral$0.03$2.50n.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
Granite 4.0 MicroIBM$0.04$3.94n.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
Mercury 2.5Inception$0.04$4.48n.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
Llama 3.1 8B InstructMeta$0.05$4.85n.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
gpt-oss-20bOpenAI$0.06$5.60n.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
Qwen3.7 FlashQwen$0.06$5.60n.a.verifiedSep 8, 2026
Ministral 3 3B 2512Mistral$0.06$5.70n.a.verifiedSep 8, 2026
Ling 3.0 Flash FininclusionAI$0.06$6.24n.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
Ling 3.0 Flash VLinclusionAI$0.06$6.24n.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
Laguna XS 2.1Poolside$0.06$6.30n.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
Nova Micro 1.0Amazon$0.06$6.30n.a.verifiedSep 11, 2026
207 models excluded from numerical estimates

Missing, stale, unsupported, or incompatible pricing is not treated as free.

Qwen3.8-Flash-Next — Price not verified. Choose “Include saved prices” to use older catalogue rates.

ByteDance Seed 2.1 Pro Preview — Price not verified. Choose “Include saved prices” to use older catalogue rates.

Claude 3 Haiku — Claude API retired 2026-04-20. This does not establish retirement or pricing on every partner endpoint.

Claude Opus 4 — Claude API retired 2026-06-15. Pricing documentation still lists Google Cloud availability; partner route status and prices are not verified here.

Claude Opus 4.1 — Claude API retired 2026-08-05. Pricing documentation still lists availability on Bedrock and Google Cloud; partner route status and prices are not verified here.

Claude Sonnet 4 — Claude API retired 2026-06-15. Pricing documentation still lists Bedrock and Google Cloud availability; partner route status and prices are not verified here.

R1 Distill Llama 70B — The per-request prompt exceeds this model's documented context window.

Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image) — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

GPT-5.4 Image 2 — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

GPT-5.6 Luna Pro — This route has conditional or scheduled pricing. See the source for the applicable rate.

GPT-5.6 Sol Pro — This route has conditional or scheduled pricing. See the source for the applicable rate.

GPT-5.6 Terra Pro — This route has conditional or scheduled pricing. See the source for the applicable rate.

GPT-6 Astra Pro — This route has conditional or scheduled pricing. See the source for the applicable rate.

Fugu Ultra v2 — This route has conditional or scheduled pricing. See the source for the applicable rate.

FLUX Video Edit — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash — This route has conditional or scheduled pricing. See the source for the applicable rate.

GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

GPT Image 2.5 Flare — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

MAI-Image-2.6 — The per-request prompt exceeds this model's documented context window.

MAI-Image-2.6 Flash — The per-request prompt exceeds this model's documented context window.

MAI-Transcribe 2 — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

H3 Max — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

Wan 3.0 Prime — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

Muse Image — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

Recraft V4 Styles Pro — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

Recraft V4 Styles Vector — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

Recraft V4 Styles Pro Vector — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

Recraft V4 Styles — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

Wan 3.0 — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.

Avatar IV — Use this model’s linked rate card. Text-token workload estimates do not cover media, transcription, embeddings or reranking.