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API pricing for large language models has commoditized rapidly, but the pricing structures have become more complex. Between input, output, prompt caching, batch execution, and self-hosted instances, developers must calculate pricing carefully to estimate their monthly workloads. Below is our dynamic pricing comparison table, kept in exact sync with the main model index.
| Model | Provider | Input / 1M | Output / 1M | Cached Input / 1M |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.6-27B | Alibaba | Self-hosted | Self-hosted | — |
| Llama 4 Maverick | Meta | Self-hosted | Self-hosted | — |
| Llama 4 Scout | Meta | Self-hosted | Self-hosted | — |
| Phi-4 | Microsoft | Self-hosted | Self-hosted | — |
| DeepSeek V4-Flash | DeepSeek | $0.140 | $0.280 | $0.0028 |
| GPT-5 Mini | OpenAI | $0.250 | $2.00 | $0.025 |
| DeepSeek V4-Pro | DeepSeek | $0.435 | $0.870 | $0.0036 |
| Mistral Large 3 | Mistral | $0.500 | $1.50 | — |
| Kimi K2.6 | Moonshot AI | $0.950 | $4.00 | $0.160 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Anthropic | $1.00 | $5.00 | $0.100 |
| GPT-5 | OpenAI | $1.25 | $10.00 | — |
| Grok 4.3 | xAI | $1.25 | $2.50 | $0.200 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | $1.50 | $9.00 | $0.150 | |
| Mistral Medium 3.5 | Mistral | $1.50 | $7.50 | — |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | $2.00 | $12.00 | $0.200 | |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Anthropic | $3.00 | $15.00 | $0.300 |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | Anthropic | $5.00 | $25.00 | $0.500 |
| Claude Opus 4.7 | Anthropic | $5.00 | $25.00 | $0.500 |
| GPT-5.5 | OpenAI | $5.00 | $30.00 | $0.500 |
Pricing Tiers: Frontier vs. Mid-Tier vs. Small
When analyzing costs, models generally fall into three tiers:
- Frontier Tier ($5.00+ Input / $15.00+ Output): Reserved for absolute top-tier intelligence like Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5. These models are ideal for complex architectural decisions and high-stakes agent loops, but are too expensive for daily high-volume tasks.
- Mid-Tier ($1.25 - $3.00 Input / $2.50 - $15.00 Output): Models like Claude Sonnet 4.6, GPT-5, and Gemini 3.5 Flash represent the "sweet spot" for production applications, blending high capability with moderate pricing.
- Small & Open Coder Tier (Sub-$1.00 Input): Models like DeepSeek V4-Flash, GPT-5 Mini, and self-hosted Llama 4 Scout. These provide fast responses and negligible costs, making them perfect for routing, classification, or high-volume summarization.
For more details on overall performance rankings, see our AI Model Rankings or compute your exact monthly cost with the Cost Calculator.
How to avoid false precision
Per-million-token pricing looks exact, but real invoices depend on workload shape. A support bot with a long policy prompt and short answers is mostly input cost; a writing assistant with short prompts and long drafts is mostly output cost. The same model can be cheap in one workflow and expensive in another.
Use the table as a normalized baseline, then calculate your own mix: average input tokens, average output tokens, cache hit rate, batch percentage, retry rate, and accepted-output rate. Those six numbers matter more than a one-line provider price when you are deciding what to ship.
Re-check the provider page before committing annual spend. Pricing pages change quietly, and some enterprise contracts include discounts, minimums, or platform fees that do not appear in public documentation.