Full LLM API pricing comparison for 2026 — input/output token costs for GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, and more. Find the cheapest model for your use case.
GPT-5 nano is the cheapest major LLM API at $0.05 per million input tokens. GPT-5.4 Pro is the most expensive at $30/$180. Claude Opus 4.6 costs $15/$75. DeepSeek V3 delivers strong performance at $0.27/$1.10 — one of the best cost-performance ratios in 2026. For most production workloads, GPT-5.4 at $2.50/$15 hits the best balance of capability and cost.
Pricing varies by more than 600x across major LLM APIs — from $0.05 to $30 per million input tokens. The right model for your workload depends on the task, volume, and how much quality you're trading for cost. This guide covers current pricing for every major model and breaks down the math for the most common use cases.
All prices are per million tokens. Check the BenchLM.ai pricing page for live pricing — rates change frequently.
| Model | Creator | Input | Output | Overall Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5 nano | OpenAI | $0.05 | $0.40 | — |
| Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | $0.10 | $0.40 | — | |
| DeepSeek V3 | DeepSeek | $0.27 | $1.10 | — |
| DeepSeek Coder 2.0 | DeepSeek | $0.27 | $1.10 | — |
| Grok 3 Mini | xAI | $0.30 | $0.50 | — |
| Gemini 3 Flash | $0.50 | $3.00 | — | |
| DeepSeek R1 | DeepSeek | $0.55 | $2.19 | — |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | $1.25 | $5.00 | 84 | |
| GPT-5.1 | OpenAI | $1.50 | $6.00 | 80 |
| GPT-5.2 Instant | OpenAI | $1.50 | $6.00 | 85 |
| GPT-5.3 Instant | OpenAI | $1.75 | $14.00 | 87 |
| GPT-5.2 | OpenAI | $2.00 | $8.00 | 88 |
| GPT-5.2-Codex | OpenAI | $2.00 | $8.00 | 85 |
| GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark | OpenAI | $2.00 | $8.00 | 87 |
| GPT-5.3 Codex | OpenAI | $2.50 | $10.00 | 89 |
| GPT-5.4 | OpenAI | $2.50 | $15.00 | 90 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Anthropic | $3.00 | $15.00 | 86 |
| Grok 4.1 | xAI | $3.00 | $15.00 | 84 |
| Mistral Large 3 | Mistral | $2.00 | $6.00 | — |
| Claude Opus 4.6 | Anthropic | $15.00 | $75.00 | 85 |
| GPT-5.2 Pro | OpenAI | $25.00 | $150.00 | 90 |
| GPT-5.4 Pro | OpenAI | $30.00 | $180.00 | 91 |
Benchmark scores from BenchLM.ai leaderboard. Prices per million tokens.
Under $0.50/M input — Nano and flash models. GPT-5 nano, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite, DeepSeek V3, Grok 3 Mini. Best for high-volume, lower-stakes tasks: classification, summarization, simple Q&A. Quality varies significantly.
$1-3/M input — The production sweet spot. Gemini 3.1 Pro ($1.25), GPT-5.1 ($1.50), GPT-5.4 ($2.50), Claude Sonnet 4.6 ($3.00), Grok 4.1 ($3.00). Strong frontier performance at reasonable cost. Most teams live here.
$15-30/M input — Flagship tier. Claude Opus 4.6 ($15), GPT-5.2 Pro ($25), GPT-5.4 Pro ($30). Reserved for tasks where the extra capability is worth the price — legal analysis, complex research, high-stakes decisions.
At $2.50/M input, GPT-5.4 gives you ~400K input tokens per month per $1 of input budget. For a typical chat application averaging 500 input tokens per message, that's 800 conversations per dollar. At that scale, GPT-5.4 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 ($3.00) are both reasonable choices.
If you're handling 10M+ tokens/month, the difference between $2.50 and $15.00/M input tokens becomes $125K/year at that volume. That's where the flagship vs mid-tier decision really matters.
For a coding assistant or IDE integration:
Assuming a 10-page document ≈ 4,000 tokens input, 500 tokens output:
| Model | Cost per doc |
|---|---|
| Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | $0.0006 |
| DeepSeek V3 | $0.0014 |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | $0.0053 |
| GPT-5.4 | $0.0175 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | $0.0195 |
| Claude Opus 4.6 | $0.098 |
For document pipelines processing thousands of documents per day, model selection has a direct P&L impact. Gemini 3.1 Pro at $0.0053/doc vs Claude Opus at $0.098/doc is an 18x cost difference.
If you need GPT-5-class quality without GPT-5 pricing:
Gemini 3.1 Pro ($1.25/$5) scores 84 overall — 6 points below GPT-5.4 — at half the price. For most tasks outside the hardest knowledge and reasoning categories, the quality gap is negligible.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 ($3/$15) scores 86 overall — 4 points below GPT-5.4 — at the same output token price but 20% higher input cost. Very competitive for writing, coding, and structured output.
GPT-5.2 ($2/$8) scores 88 overall — just 2 points below GPT-5.4 — at 80% of the input cost and 53% of the output cost.
DeepSeek V3 at $0.27/$1.10 vs GPT-5.4 at $2.50/$15:
For a pipeline generating 1M output tokens per day:
The question is whether GPT-5.4's benchmark advantage justifies the 14x output cost premium. For general text generation, creative writing, and many coding tasks — probably not. For hard reasoning, agentic workflows, and tasks requiring frontier-level reliability — the benchmark gap is real.
DeepSeek R1 (the reasoning model at $0.55/$2.19) vs GPT-5.4 Pro ($30/$180) is an even starker comparison: ~80x cheaper on output tokens. The quality gap on hard reasoning is real but not 80x worth of quality.
Free tier / experiments: GPT-5 nano, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite Serious prototypes: DeepSeek V3, Gemini 3 Flash Small production apps (under $500/mo): Gemini 3.1 Pro, GPT-5.1, Claude Sonnet 4.6 Scale production (high volume): GPT-5.4, GPT-5.2, Grok 4.1 Enterprise / high-stakes workflows: Claude Opus 4.6, GPT-5.4 Pro
→ Use the AI Cost Calculator to estimate your monthly spend · Full pricing table
What is the cheapest LLM API in 2026? GPT-5 nano at $0.05/$0.40 per million tokens. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite at $0.10/$0.40 follows closely. For better quality at still-cheap pricing, DeepSeek V3 at $0.27/$1.10 is the standout budget option.
How much does GPT-5.4 cost? $2.50 per million input tokens, $15 per million output tokens. GPT-5.4 Pro costs $30/$180 — more than 10x higher. For most teams, standard GPT-5.4 is the better value.
How much does Claude Opus 4.6 cost? $15 per million input tokens, $75 per million output tokens. Claude Sonnet 4.6 at $3/$15 is the same quality tier for most tasks at one-fifth the price.
Is DeepSeek cheaper than GPT-5? Yes, by a large margin. DeepSeek V3 at $0.27/$1.10 is 9x cheaper on input and 14x cheaper on output than GPT-5.4. For high-volume workloads where the quality gap is acceptable, the savings are substantial.
What is the best value LLM in 2026? GPT-5.4 ($2.50/$15) for the best capability-to-cost ratio at the frontier. Gemini 3.1 Pro ($1.25/$5) for strong quality at half the price. DeepSeek V3 ($0.27/$1.10) for budget-first deployments.
Prices current as of March 2026. Check BenchLM.ai/pricing for the latest rates.
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