Compare AI models by what they actually cost
Prices checked 5 Nov 2026 · 58 models · 9 providers
Cheapest in each tier
Tiers group models by capability, not price.
Budget
High volume, simple tasksMid-tier
Everyday workFlagship
Hardest problemsIn / out price per 1 million tokens. Tiers are our grouping by capability and price; one model per provider, ranked by a 3:1 input-to-output blend. Legacy models and models closed to new users are left out.
Latest price changes
- GPT-5.6 SolOpenAI now says GPT-5.6 Sol's promotional pricing is available until Nov 30, 2026, having said earlier that it runs at least through Nov 21OpenAI pricingTier change
- Gemini 2.5 ProGemini 2.5 Flash+2 moreGoogle deprecates Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini 2.5 Flash, with a Dec 1, 2026 shutdown date: from then their API requests route to Gemini 3.8 Flash and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite respectively, billed at those models' ratesGemini pricingRetired
- Mistral Large 3Mistral Medium 3.5+1 moreMistral deprecates Mistral Large 3 and Mistral Medium 3.5, with both retiring from its API on Apr 30, 2027 and Mistral Large 4 as the named alternativeMistral pricingRetired
- Mistral Large 4In$1.36 to $0.70down 49%Out$4.18 to $2.10down 50%Mistral now lists Mistral Large 4 at $0.70/$2.10 (from $1.36/$4.18), with cached input at $0.07Mistral pricing▼ Price cut
- GPT-6.1 TerraIn$1.00Out$5.00OpenAI launches GPT-6.1 Terra at $1/$5 (1.05M context; cached input $0.05; $2/$7.50 above 272K)OpenAI pricingLaunch
Subscriptions and plans
The vendor sets local prices. Where we haven’t seen a vendor’s price in your currency, it stays in US dollars.
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Is compareai.today free to use?
Yes, completely free. No sign-up, no email capture, no credit card. All tools — the cost calculator, comparison table, charts, and pricing history — are available immediately without an account.
What is a token in AI pricing?
A token is the unit AI models use to process text — roughly 4 characters, or about three-quarters of an English word. APIs bill per token, so a 1,000-word prompt is around 1,300 input tokens. Every price on this site is quoted per million tokens (MTok).
What is the absolute cheapest AI API right now?
By input cost, Meta Llama 3.1 8B at ~$0.02/MTok input and ~$0.04/MTok output is the cheapest, with Llama 4 Scout next at $0.10 — though both are offered through third-party hosts, so pricing varies by provider. The cheapest we track from a major first-party API is Google Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite at $0.10/MTok input and $0.40/MTok output ($0.05/$0.20 with batch processing), but since 18 September 2026 Google has limited it to developers who have used it before. For a new project, the cheapest current-generation first-party options we track are tied: OpenAI's GPT-6 Luna ($0.10/$0.50, or $0.05/$0.25 with batch processing) and Anthropic's Claude Haiku 5.5 ($0.10/$0.50, or $0.05/$0.25 with batch). Haiku 5.5's rate covers prompts up to 100,000 tokens only, rising to $0.50/$2.50 above that, while Luna keeps its rate up to 272K tokens and then rises to $0.20/$0.75, so Luna is the cheaper of the two for long prompts.
How often are prices updated?
We update pricing data monthly and whenever a provider announces a price change. Exchange rates for currency conversion are updated daily. Every provider page links to the official pricing docs so you can verify the source.
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