Cheapest AI Models
Last updated: 12m ago
Every AI model ranked by API cost. Find free models, ultra-budget options under $0.50/1M tokens, and the best quality-per-dollar picks across 412+ models.
42
Free
$0/1M tokens
70
Ultra Budget
Under $0.50/1M
140
Budget
$0.50 – $3/1M
101
Standard
$3 – $15/1M
59
Premium
$15+/1M
Best Value - Highest Score per Dollar
Free
$0/1M tokens - 42 models| Model | Score | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| LFM2.5-2.6B (free)Liquid AI | 40 | Free | Free |
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free)NVIDIA | 40 | Free | Free |
| Ling 3.0 Tiny (free)inclusionai | 40 | Free | Free |
| Laguna S 2.1 (free)poolside | 40 | Free | Free |
| Laguna XS 2.1 (free)poolside | 40 | Free | Free |
| North Mini Code (free)Cohere | 40 | Free | Free |
| Nemotron 3.5 Content Safety (free)NVIDIA | 40 | Free | Free |
| Nemotron 3 Ultra (free)NVIDIA | 40 | Free | Free |
| Nemotron 3 Nano Omni (free)NVIDIA | 40 | Free | Free |
| Gemma 4 26B A4B (free)Google | 73 | Free | Free |
| Gemma 4 31B (free)Google | 81 | Free | Free |
| Lyria 3 Pro PreviewGoogle | 40 | Free | Free |
| Lyria 3 Clip PreviewGoogle | 40 | Free | Free |
| Nemotron 3 Super (free)NVIDIA | 40 | Free | Free |
| Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free)NVIDIA | - | Free | Free |
| Nemotron Nano 12B 2 VL (free)NVIDIA | - | Free | Free |
| Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free)NVIDIA | - | Free | Free |
| gpt-oss-20b (free)OpenAI | 58 | Free | Free |
| Midjourney v6.1Midjourney | - | Free | Free |
| Adobe Firefly 3Adobe | - | Free | Free |
| Leonardo PhoenixLeonardo AI | - | Free | Free |
| SoraOpenAI | - | Free | Free |
| Runway Gen-3 AlphaRunway | - | Free | Free |
| Pika 2.0Pika | - | Free | Free |
| MiniMax Video-01MiniMax | - | Free | Free |
+17 more models in this tier. View all pricing →
Ultra Budget
Under $0.50/1M - 70 models| Model | Score | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ling-2.6-flashinclusionai | 40 | $0.010 | $0.030 |
| Mistral NemoMistral AI | - | $0.019 | $0.030 |
| Ling-3.0-flashinclusionai | 40 | $0.021 | $0.063 |
| Mistral Small 3Mistral AI | - | $0.050 | $0.080 |
| Llama 3.1 8B InstructMeta | 45 | $0.050 | $0.080 |
| Granite 4.1 8BIBM | 55 | $0.050 | $0.100 |
| Reka Edgerekaai | 40 | $0.100 | $0.100 |
| Ministral 3 3B 2512Mistral AI | - | $0.100 | $0.100 |
| Gemma 3 4BGoogle | - | $0.050 | $0.100 |
| Granite 4.0 MicroIBM | - | $0.017 | $0.112 |
| Solar Pro 4Upstage | 40 | $0.030 | $0.120 |
| Laguna XS 2.1poolside | 40 | $0.060 | $0.120 |
| Gemma 3n 4BGoogle | - | $0.060 | $0.120 |
| Qwen3.7 FlashAlibaba | 40 | $0.030 | $0.130 |
| gpt-oss-20bOpenAI | 58 | $0.030 | $0.130 |
| Phi 4Microsoft | 60 | $0.070 | $0.140 |
| Nova Micro 1.0Amazon | - | $0.035 | $0.140 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash Latest~deepseek | 40 | $0.072 | $0.144 |
| Qwen3.5-9BAlibaba | 67 | $0.100 | $0.150 |
| Ministral 3 8B 2512Mistral AI | - | $0.150 | $0.150 |
| Gemma 3 12BGoogle | - | $0.050 | $0.150 |
| Command R7B (12-2024)Cohere | - | $0.037 | $0.150 |
| gpt-oss-120bOpenAI | 40 | $0.030 | $0.170 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731DeepSeek | 40 | $0.080 | $0.180 |
| Laguna S 2.1poolside | 40 | $0.090 | $0.180 |
+45 more models in this tier. View all pricing →
Budget
$0.50 – $3/1M - 140 models| Model | Score | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olmo 3 32B ThinkAllen AI | 55 | $0.150 | $0.500 |
| Qwen3 30B A3BAlibaba | 64 | $0.120 | $0.500 |
| Hy3Tencent | 75 | $0.132 | $0.528 |
| Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507Alibaba | 65 | $0.090 | $0.550 |
| Mistral Small 3.1 24BMistral AI | - | $0.351 | $0.555 |
| Hunyuan A13B InstructTencent | - | $0.140 | $0.570 |
| KAT-Coder-Air V2.5Kuaishou | 40 | $0.150 | $0.600 |
| GPT-5.6 Luna ProOpenAI | 89 | $0.100 | $0.600 |
| GPT-5.6 Luna Pro (batch)OpenAI | 89 | $0.100 | $0.600 |
| GPT-5.6 LunaOpenAI | 89 | $0.100 | $0.600 |
| GPT-5.6 Luna (batch)OpenAI | 89 | $0.100 | $0.600 |
| MiniMax M3 (batch)MiniMax | 74 | $0.150 | $0.600 |
| Mistral Small 4Mistral AI | 40 | $0.150 | $0.600 |
| Solar Pro 3Upstage | 40 | $0.150 | $0.600 |
| Qwen3 VL 30B A3B InstructAlibaba | - | $0.150 | $0.600 |
| SabaMistral AI | - | $0.200 | $0.600 |
| Command R (08-2024)Cohere | 49 | $0.150 | $0.600 |
| GPT-4o-miniOpenAI | 69 | $0.150 | $0.600 |
| GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18)OpenAI | 57 | $0.150 | $0.600 |
| WizardLM-2 8x22BMicrosoft | - | $0.620 | $0.620 |
| Ring-2.6-1Tinclusionai | 40 | $0.075 | $0.625 |
| Ling-2.6-1Tinclusionai | 40 | $0.075 | $0.625 |
| GPT-5.4 Nano (batch)OpenAI | 79 | $0.100 | $0.625 |
| Gemma 2 27BGoogle | 77 | $0.650 | $0.650 |
| Llama 4 MaverickMeta | 68 | $0.200 | $0.696 |
+115 more models in this tier. View all pricing →
Standard
$3 – $15/1M - 101 models| Model | Score | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seed-2.0-CodeByteDance | 40 | $0.500 | $3.00 |
| Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image)Google | - | $0.500 | $3.00 |
| Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image Preview)Google | - | $0.500 | $3.00 |
| Gemini 3 Flash PreviewGoogle | 88 | $0.500 | $3.00 |
| Nova Pro 1.0Amazon | - | $0.800 | $3.20 |
| Qwen3 Coder PlusAlibaba | - | $0.650 | $3.25 |
| Kimi K2.7 CodeMoonshot AI | 54 | $0.700 | $3.50 |
| Nemotron 3 UltraNVIDIA | 40 | $0.600 | $3.60 |
| Qwen3.6 27BAlibaba | 40 | $0.600 | $3.60 |
| Qwen3.5 397B A17BAlibaba | 79 | $0.500 | $3.60 |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash (batch)Google | 80 | $0.750 | $3.75 |
| Qwen3 Max ThinkingAlibaba | 68 | $0.780 | $3.90 |
| Qwen3 MaxAlibaba | 67 | $0.780 | $3.90 |
| Sakana Namazusakana | 40 | $0.950 | $4.00 |
| Kimi K2.6Moonshot AI | 76 | $0.950 | $4.00 |
| GLM 5V TurboZhipu AI | 72 | $1.20 | $4.00 |
| GLM 5 TurboZhipu AI | 82 | $1.20 | $4.00 |
| Qwen3 VL 235B A22B ThinkingAlibaba | 69 | $0.400 | $4.00 |
| o3 (batch)OpenAI | 87 | $1.00 | $4.00 |
| GPT-4.1 (batch)OpenAI | 68 | $1.00 | $4.00 |
| GPT-3.5 Turbo 16kOpenAI | - | $3.00 | $4.00 |
| Inklingthinkingmachines | 74 | $0.950 | $4.05 |
| Muse Spark 1.2meta | 81 | $1.25 | $4.25 |
| Muse Spark 1.1meta | 81 | $1.25 | $4.25 |
| GLM 5.1Zhipu AI | 82 | $1.40 | $4.40 |
+76 more models in this tier. View all pricing →
Premium
$15+/1M - 59 models| Model | Score | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kimi K3Moonshot AI | 40 | $3.00 | $15.00 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol Pro (batch)OpenAI | 89 | $2.50 | $15.00 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol (batch)OpenAI | 89 | $2.50 | $15.00 |
| GPT-5.5 (batch)OpenAI | 93 | $2.50 | $15.00 |
| GPT-5.4 Image 2OpenAI | - | $8.00 | $15.00 |
| GPT-5.4OpenAI | 92 | $2.50 | $15.00 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6Anthropic | 85 | $3.00 | $15.00 |
| Sonar Pro SearchPerplexity | - | $3.00 | $15.00 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.5Anthropic | 82 | $3.00 | $15.00 |
| Claude Sonnet 4Anthropic | 74 | $3.00 | $15.00 |
| Sonar ProPerplexity | - | $3.00 | $15.00 |
| GPT-4o (2024-05-13)OpenAI | 71 | $5.00 | $15.00 |
| GPT-4 Turbo (batch)OpenAI | 62 | $5.00 | $15.00 |
| Claude Opus 5Anthropic | 95 | $5.00 | $25.00 |
| Claude Fable 5 (batch)Anthropic | 97 | $5.00 | $25.00 |
| Claude Opus 4.8Anthropic | 95 | $5.00 | $25.00 |
| Claude Opus Latest~anthropic | 40 | $5.00 | $25.00 |
| Claude Opus 4.7Anthropic | 95 | $5.00 | $25.00 |
| Claude Opus 4.6Anthropic | 90 | $5.00 | $25.00 |
| Claude Opus 4.5Anthropic | 85 | $5.00 | $25.00 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol ProOpenAI | 89 | $5.00 | $30.00 |
| GPT-5.6 SolOpenAI | 89 | $5.00 | $30.00 |
| Fugu Ultrasakana | 40 | $5.00 | $30.00 |
| GPT Chat LatestOpenAI | 40 | $5.00 | $30.00 |
| OpenAI GPT Latest~openai | 40 | $5.00 | $30.00 |
+34 more models in this tier. View all pricing →
Frequently Asked Questions
AI models charge per token - the basic unit of text. A token is roughly 4 characters or 0.75 words. Pricing is typically listed per million tokens for both input (your prompt) and output (the model response).
Several models are completely free including some from Google, Meta, and others. For paid models, pricing starts as low as $0.01 per million tokens. Check our cheapest models page for the full ranking.
Use our token counter to measure your typical prompt and response sizes, then multiply by the model's per-token price. Our cost calculator can automate this based on your expected monthly usage.
It depends on your usage volume. For light use (under ~100 messages/day), subscriptions are usually cheaper. For heavy or programmatic use, API access is typically more cost-effective. Use our subscription calculator to compare.