Cheapest AI model APIs by blended token price

Every model in the dataset ranked by a blended rate at three input tokens per output token, the ratio most chat and retrieval workloads land near. Ranking on input price alone flatters reasoning models, whose output is where the spend actually goes.

List prices checked

All 25, ranked

#NameProviderBlendedNotes
1GPT-5 nanoOpenAI$0.138/1M tokens400K context · $0.050 in / $0.400 out
2Mistral SmallMistral AI$0.150/1M tokens131K context · $0.100 in / $0.300 out
3Gemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGoogle$0.175/1M tokens1M context · $0.100 in / $0.400 out
4DeepSeek-V4-FlashDeepSeek$0.175/1M tokens1M context · $0.140 in / $0.280 out
5GPT-4o miniOpenAI$0.262/1M tokens128K context · $0.150 in / $0.600 out
6Cohere Command RCohere$0.262/1M tokens128K context · $0.150 in / $0.600 out
7Grok 3 minixAI$0.350/1M tokens131K context · $0.300 in / $0.500 out
8CodestralMistral AI$0.450/1M tokens262K context · $0.300 in / $0.900 out
9DeepSeek-V4-ProDeepSeek$0.544/1M tokens1M context · $0.435 in / $0.870 out
10GPT-5 miniOpenAI$0.688/1M tokens400K context · $0.250 in / $2.00 out
11GPT-4.1 miniOpenAI$0.700/1M tokens1M context · $0.400 in / $1.60 out
12Gemini 2.5 FlashGoogle$0.850/1M tokens1M context · $0.300 in / $2.50 out
13OpenAI o4-miniOpenAI$1.93/1M tokens200K context · $1.10 in / $4.40 out
14Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic$2.00/1M tokens200K context · $1.00 in / $5.00 out
15Mistral LargeMistral AI$3.00/1M tokens131K context · $2.00 in / $6.00 out
16GPT-5OpenAI$3.44/1M tokens400K context · $1.25 in / $10.00 out
17Gemini 2.5 ProGoogle$3.44/1M tokens1M context · $1.25 in / $10.00 out
18GPT-4.1OpenAI$3.50/1M tokens1M context · $2.00 in / $8.00 out
19OpenAI o3OpenAI$3.50/1M tokens200K context · $2.00 in / $8.00 out
20GPT-4oOpenAI$4.38/1M tokens128K context · $2.50 in / $10.00 out
21Cohere Command ACohere$4.38/1M tokens256K context · $2.50 in / $10.00 out
22Claude Sonnet 5Anthropic$6.00/1M tokens200K context · $3.00 in / $15.00 out
23Grok 4xAI$6.00/1M tokens256K context · $3.00 in / $15.00 out
24Claude Opus 5Anthropic$10.00/1M tokens200K context · $5.00 in / $25.00 out
25Claude Fable 5Anthropic$20.00/1M tokens200K context · $10.00 in / $50.00 out

Source: OpenAI (May 2026) · Mistral AI (May 2026) · Google (May 2026) · DeepSeek (August 2026) · Cohere (May 2026) · xAI (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.

Questions

What is the cheapest ai model apis by blended token price in 2026?
GPT-5 nano from OpenAI tops this ranking at $0.138/1M tokens. The full table below shows all 25 entries with the same measure applied to each.
How is this ranking calculated?
Every model in the dataset ranked by a blended rate at three input tokens per output token, the ratio most chat and retrieval workloads land near. Ranking on input price alone flatters reasoning models, whose output is where the spend actually goes. Every figure is the provider's own published list price, linked in the source column and stamped with the month it was checked.
Why is the cheapest option not always the right one?
Because a single axis never captures the whole bill. A provider with the lowest storage rate may have the highest egress rate; a model with the cheapest input tokens may be the most expensive for agentic work. The comparison pages model both sides against identical workloads, which is the check worth doing before switching.

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