AI Models Under $1
112 AI models with API pricing under $1 per million output tokens. These ultra-budget options deliver surprising quality - many include vision, reasoning, and function calling capabilities.
All Models Under $1/1M - Ranked by Score
| # | Model | Score | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GPT-5.6 Luna ProOpenAI | 89 | $0.100 | $0.600 |
| 2 | GPT-5.6 Luna Pro (batch)OpenAI | 89 | $0.100 | $0.600 |
| 3 | GPT-5.6 LunaOpenAI | 89 | $0.100 | $0.600 |
| 4 | GPT-5.6 Luna (batch)OpenAI | 89 | $0.100 | $0.600 |
| 5 | DeepSeek V4 ProDeepSeek | 87 | $0.435 | $0.870 |
| 6 | DeepSeek V3.2DeepSeek | 81 | $0.260 | $0.380 |
| 7 | Gemma 4 31BGoogle | 81 | $0.100 | $0.340 |
| 8 | GPT-5.4 Nano (batch)OpenAI | 79 | $0.100 | $0.625 |
| 9 | Gemini 2.5 Flash LiteGoogle | 79 | $0.100 | $0.400 |
| 10 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite (batch)Google | 79 | $0.050 | $0.200 |
| 11 | GLM 5.2Zhipu AI | 79 | $0.252 | $0.792 |
| 12 | MiniMax M2.5MiniMax | 78 | $0.220 | $0.900 |
| 13 | Gemma 2 27BGoogle | 77 | $0.650 | $0.650 |
| 14 | GPT-5 Nano (batch)OpenAI | 77 | $0.025 | $0.200 |
| 15 | MiMo-V2.5-ProXiaomi | 76 | $0.435 | $0.870 |
| 16 | MiniMax M3 (batch)MiniMax | 74 | $0.150 | $0.600 |
| 17 | Hy3Tencent | 74 | $0.132 | $0.528 |
| 18 | MiMo-V2.5Xiaomi | 73 | $0.140 | $0.280 |
| 19 | Gemma 4 26B A4B Google | 73 | $0.070 | $0.340 |
| 20 | DeepSeek V3.2 ExpDeepSeek | 72 | $0.270 | $0.410 |
| 21 | DeepSeek V3.1DeepSeek | 72 | $0.250 | $0.950 |
| 22 | GLM 4.5 AirZhipu AI | 71 | $0.130 | $0.850 |
| 23 | GPT-4o-miniOpenAI | 69 | $0.150 | $0.600 |
| 24 | Qwen3.5-FlashAlibaba | 69 | $0.065 | $0.260 |
| 25 | Hy3 previewTencent | 68 | $0.063 | $0.210 |
| 26 | Llama 4 MaverickMeta | 68 | $0.200 | $0.800 |
| 27 | Llama 3.3 70B InstructMeta | 67 | $0.100 | $0.320 |
| 28 | Qwen3.5-9BAlibaba | 67 | $0.100 | $0.150 |
| 29 | Step 3.5 FlashStepFun | 66 | $0.100 | $0.300 |
| 30 | GLM 4.6VZhipu AI | 66 | $0.300 | $0.900 |
| 31 | Llama 3.1 70B InstructMeta | 65 | $0.400 | $0.400 |
| 32 | Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507Alibaba | 65 | $0.090 | $0.550 |
| 33 | Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507Alibaba | 64 | $0.048 | $0.193 |
| 34 | Qwen3 30B A3BAlibaba | 64 | $0.120 | $0.500 |
| 35 | Trinity Large Thinkingarcee-ai | 64 | $0.220 | $0.850 |
| 36 | GLM 4.7 FlashZhipu AI | 64 | $0.060 | $0.400 |
| 37 | GPT-4o-mini (batch)OpenAI | 63 | $0.075 | $0.300 |
| 38 | Mercury 2Inception | 61 | $0.250 | $0.750 |
| 39 | Qwen3 8BAlibaba | 61 | $0.117 | $0.455 |
| 40 | Phi 4Microsoft | 60 | $0.070 | $0.140 |
What Does Under $1/1M Tokens Mean?
Real-World Cost Examples
At $0.50/1M output tokens, generating a 2,000-word blog post (~2,500 tokens) costs about $0.00125 - roughly 1/10th of a penny. You could generate 800 blog posts for $1. For chatbots, even heavy usage stays under a few dollars per month.
Quality vs Cost Trade-off
Sub-$1 models have improved dramatically. Many score above 70 on our composite index and include advanced features like vision and reasoning. The quality gap between budget and premium models continues to shrink with each generation.
When to Go Budget
Budget models are ideal for: high-volume batch processing, simple classification tasks, draft generation with human review, prototype development, and any use case where cost per request matters more than peak quality.
When to Spend More
Premium models justify their cost for: complex reasoning tasks, customer-facing applications requiring top accuracy, specialized code generation, and scenarios where errors have high downstream costs.
More Pricing Pages
Many sub-$1 models deliver surprising quality. Several score above 70 on our composite index and include advanced features like vision, reasoning, and function calling. They are well-suited for high-volume batch processing, classification tasks, draft generation, and prototype development. The quality gap between budget and premium models continues to shrink with each generation.
At $0.50 per million output tokens, generating a 2,000-word blog post (approximately 2,500 tokens) costs about $0.00125 - roughly one-tenth of a penny. You could generate 800 blog posts for just $1. Even heavy chatbot usage typically stays under a few dollars per month at these price points.
Many budget models include vision (image understanding), function calling (tool use), JSON mode for structured output, and streaming. Some even offer reasoning capabilities. The main trade-off compared to premium models is usually in complex multi-step reasoning, nuanced writing quality, and handling edge cases.