Cheapest LLM APIs That Still Score Well (2026)
Of the 25 models with the best aggregate benchmark score, the cheapest by listed input price is GPT-5.6 Luna (max) at $0.200 per million tokens. This page ranks models on the cheapest listed input price among the 25 highest-scoring models on the aggregate score. Data last captured 2026-10-05.
| # | Model | Cheapest input $/M | Output $/M | Overall rank | Aggregate score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GPT-5.6 Luna (max) | $0.200 | $1.20 | #19 | 55.1 |
| 2 | DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (max) | $0.660 | $1.98 | #25 | 54.3 |
| 3 | Muse Spark 1.3 (max) | $1.25 | $4.25 | #20 | 55.0 |
| 4 | Kimi K3 (max) | $1.29 | $14.00 | #17 | 55.7 |
| 5 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (max) | $2.00 | $10.00 | #4 | 60.8 |
| 6 | GPT-6.1 Sol (max) | $2.00 | $10.00 | #5 | 60.6 |
| 7 | GPT-5.6 Sol (max) | $2.00 | $10.00 | #7 | 60.1 |
| 8 | GPT-6 Sol (max) | $2.00 | $10.00 | #8 | 60.0 |
| 9 | GPT-5.6 Terra (max) | $2.00 | $12.00 | #11 | 57.7 |
| 10 | GPT-5.6 Sol (pro, max) | $2.00 | $10.00 | #16 | 56.1 |
| 11 | gemini-3.1-pro-preview-high | $2.00 | $12.00 | #18 | 55.3 |
| 12 | GPT-5.4 (xhigh) | $2.50 | $15.00 | #13 | 57.1 |
| 13 | Claude 4 Sonnet | $3.00 | $15.00 | #21 | 54.5 |
| 14 | Claude 3.5-Sonnet-20241022 | $3.00 | $15.00 | #24 | 54.4 |
| 15 | Claude Opus 5.5 (max) | $4.00 | $20.00 | #1 | 64.2 |
| 16 | Claude Opus 5 (max) | $5.00 | $25.00 | #6 | 60.1 |
| 17 | GPT-5.5 (xhigh) | $5.00 | $30.00 | #10 | 58.3 |
| 18 | claude-opus-4-8-xhigh-effort | $5.00 | $25.00 | #14 | 56.6 |
| 19 | GPT-6 Astra (max) | $10.00 | $50.00 | #2 | 63.8 |
| 20 | Claude Fable 5.1 (max) | $10.00 | $50.00 | #3 | 61.9 |
| 21 | Claude Fable 5 (max) | $10.00 | $50.00 | #9 | 59.9 |
| 22 | GPT-5.5 Pro (xhigh) | $30.00 | $180.00 | #12 | 57.5 |
| 23 | GPT-5.4 Pro (xhigh) | $30.00 | $180.00 | #15 | 56.1 |
How this ranking is built
This list takes the highest-ranked models on the all-benchmark aggregate and sorts them by the cheapest input price we found across providers. A cheap model that ranks low overall is not shown. Prices change often; the hourly price check is described in the methodology.