Score-per-dollar analysis across 300 AI models. Find the models that deliver the most performance for every dollar spent, broken down by price tier, provider, and the sweet spot between quality and affordability.
| # | Model | Score | Value Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ling-2.6-flashinclusionai | 40 | 2000.0 |
| 2 | Llama 3.1 8B InstructMeta | 44 | 1764.0 |
| 3 | Mistral NemoMistral AI | 40 | 1596.0 |
| 4 | Granite 4.1 8BIBM | 55 | 733.3 |
| 5 | Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507Alibaba | 64 | 676.8 |
| 6 | gpt-oss-20bOpenAI | 57 | 675.7 |
| 7 | Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507Alibaba | 65 | 651.0 |
| 8 | Granite 4.0 MicroIBM | 40 | 620.2 |
| 9 | Mistral Small 3Mistral AI | 40 | 615.4 |
| 10 | DeepSeek V4 FlashDeepSeek | 77 | 571.9 |
| 11 | Phi 4Microsoft | 60 | 570.5 |
| 12 | LFM2-24B-A2BLiquid AI | 40 | 533.3 |
| 13 | Gemma 3 4BGoogle | 40 | 533.3 |
| 14 | Qwen3.5-9BAlibaba | 66 | 528.0 |
| 15 | Hy3 previewTencent | 68 | 497.4 |
| 16 | Nova Micro 1.0Amazon | 40 | 457.1 |
| 17 | Gemma 3n 4BGoogle | 40 | 444.4 |
| 18 | Qwen3.5-FlashAlibaba | 68 | 419.1 |
| 19 | Trinity Miniarcee-ai | 40 | 410.3 |
| 20 | Reka Edgerekaai | 40 | 400.0 |
| 21 | Ministral 3 3B 2512Mistral AI | 40 | 400.0 |
| 22 | Gemma 3 12BGoogle | 40 | 400.0 |
| 23 | MiMo-V2.5Xiaomi | 72 | 376.1 |
| 24 | Gemma 4 26B A4B Google | 73 | 372.3 |
| 25 | gpt-oss-120bOpenAI | 40 | 366.2 |
| 26 | Step 3.5 FlashStepFun | 67 | 341.5 |
| 27 | Gemma 4 31BGoogle | 80 | 340.4 |
| 28 | Gemma 3 27BGoogle | 40 | 333.3 |
| 29 | Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507Alibaba | 40 | 331.7 |
| 30 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3BNVIDIA | 40 | 320.0 |
| 31 | Llama 3.3 70B InstructMeta | 66 | 316.2 |
| 32 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite Preview 09-2025Google | 79 | 314.4 |
| 33 | Gemini 2.5 Flash LiteGoogle | 79 | 314.4 |
| 34 | Mistral Small 3.2 24BMistral AI | 40 | 290.9 |
| 35 | DeepSeek V3.2DeepSeek | 81 | 282.5 |
| 36 | GLM 4.7 FlashZhipu AI | 63 | 275.2 |
| 37 | Llama 4 ScoutMeta | 55 | 274.5 |
| 38 | Qwen3 8BAlibaba | 61 | 269.3 |
| 39 | Laguna XS.2poolside | 40 | 266.7 |
| 40 | Ministral 3 8B 2512Mistral AI | 40 | 266.7 |
| 41 | UI-TARS 7B ByteDance | 40 | 266.7 |
| 42 | Reka Flash 3rekaai | 40 | 266.7 |
| 43 | Nova Lite 1.0Amazon | 40 | 266.7 |
| 44 | Qwen3 30B A3B Thinking 2507Alibaba | 64 | 265.4 |
| 45 | Phi 4 Mini InstructMicrosoft | 52 | 243.3 |
| 46 | Qwen3 14BAlibaba | 40 | 235.3 |
| 47 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B InstructAlibaba | 40 | 235.3 |
| 48 | Llama Guard 4 12BMeta | 40 | 222.2 |
| 49 | Qwen3 32BAlibaba | 40 | 222.2 |
| 50 | Seed 1.6 FlashByteDance | 40 | 213.3 |
| # | Model | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gemma 4 31B (free)Google | 80 |
| 2 | Gemma 4 26B A4B (free)Google | 73 |
| 3 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct (free)Alibaba | 67 |
| 4 | Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free)Meta | 66 |
| 5 | gpt-oss-20b (free)OpenAI | 57 |
| 6 | North Mini Code (free)Cohere | 40 |
| 7 | Nemotron 3.5 Content Safety (free)NVIDIA | 40 |
| 8 | Nemotron 3 Ultra (free)NVIDIA | 40 |
| 9 | Nemotron 3 Nano Omni (free)NVIDIA | 40 |
| 10 | Laguna XS.2 (free)poolside | 40 |
| 11 | Laguna M.1 (free)poolside | 40 |
| 12 | Lyria 3 Pro PreviewGoogle | 40 |
| 13 | Lyria 3 Clip PreviewGoogle | 40 |
| 14 | Nemotron 3 Super (free)NVIDIA | 40 |
| 15 | LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking (free)Liquid AI | 40 |
| 16 | LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct (free)Liquid AI | 40 |
| 17 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free)NVIDIA | 40 |
| 18 | Nemotron Nano 12B 2 VL (free)NVIDIA | 40 |
| 19 | Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free)NVIDIA | 40 |
| 20 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B (free)Alibaba | 40 |
| 21 | ALLaM 34BHUMAIN | 40 |
| 22 | Falcon-H1-Arabic 34B InstructTII | 40 |
| 23 | Falcon-H1-Arabic 7B InstructTII | 40 |
| 24 | Falcon-H1-Arabic 3B InstructTII | 40 |
| 25 | Falcon Arabic 7B InstructTII | 40 |
| 26 | Falcon3 10B InstructTII | 40 |
| 27 | Falcon3 7B InstructTII | 40 |
| 28 | gpt-oss-120b (free)OpenAI | 39 |
| 29 | ALLaM 7B Instruct (preview)HUMAIN | 38 |
Models in the top 20% for value score AND top 50% for composite score. The best of both worlds.
| Provider | Models | Avg Score | Avg Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| inclusionai | 3 | 40 | 742.9 |
| IBM | 2 | 48 | 676.7 |
| Meta | 7 | 54 | 433.5 |
| Microsoft | 2 | 56 | 406.9 |
| rekaai | 2 | 40 | 333.3 |
| Tencent | 2 | 54 | 305.1 |
| Xiaomi | 2 | 74 | 246.0 |
| Mistral AI | 18 | 47 | 229.4 |
| StepFun | 2 | 53 | 200.4 |
| poolside | 2 | 40 | 200.0 |
The value score is computed as composite quality score divided by average cost per million tokens. A model scoring 80 at $0.50/1M tokens has a value score of 160, while a model scoring 90 at $15/1M tokens has a value score of 6. Higher values mean more quality per dollar spent. Free models are excluded from value rankings since division by zero is undefined.
Sweet Spot models sit in the top 20% for value score AND the top 50% for composite quality score. They represent the best of both worlds: genuinely high-quality models that also deliver excellent value for money. These are the models most likely to satisfy both quality requirements and budget constraints.
Budget tier models (under $1/1M tokens) typically offer the highest value scores because even moderate quality at very low cost produces a strong ratio. However, the sweet spot analysis shows that some mid-tier models deliver the best combination of absolute quality and value. The ideal choice depends on whether you prioritize raw quality or cost efficiency.