Model pricing
AI model pricing: cheapest LLMs by token cost
AI model prices span a wide range. The cheapest chat-capable list price in this index is Ministral 3B (latest) at $0.040 per 1M tokens blended, while high-list-price frontier rows run to around $285.00. This index ranks models by blended token cost so you can find a budget option and then confirm it on your own workload. Output tokens cost several times more than input, so weight output for your workload, and verify the provider source before production billing.
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Cheapest AI models by blended token cost
Chat-capable models ranked by a 70% input / 30% output blend from the ByteCosts pricing index.
| Model | Provider | Input /1M | Output /1M | Blend /1M |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ministral 3B (latest) | Mistral | $0.040 | $0.040 | $0.040 |
| Command R7B | Cohere | $0.037 | $0.150 | $0.071 |
| Command R7B Arabic | Cohere | $0.037 | $0.150 | $0.071 |
| Qwen Turbo | Alibaba | $0.050 | $0.200 | $0.095 |
| Ministral 8B (latest) | Mistral | $0.100 | $0.100 | $0.100 |
| GPT OSS 20B | Vertex | $0.070 | $0.250 | $0.124 |
| Mistral Nemo | Mistral | $0.150 | $0.150 | $0.150 |
| Open Mistral Nemo | Mistral | $0.150 | $0.150 | $0.150 |
| Pixtral 12B | Mistral | $0.150 | $0.150 | $0.150 |
| solar-mini | Upstage | $0.150 | $0.150 | $0.150 |
| Qwen Flash | Alibaba | $0.050 | $0.400 | $0.155 |
| GPT-5 Nano | OpenAI | $0.050 | $0.400 | $0.155 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest AI model?
The cheapest chat-capable list price in this index is Ministral 3B (latest) at $0.040 per 1M tokens blended (70% input / 30% output). A lower list price is not a quality verdict. Confirm the model on your own task before committing.
Why is the cheapest model not always the right choice?
Output tokens cost several times more than input, and a weaker model can take more turns, retries, or tokens to finish a task, so a higher-quality model can be cheaper per completed job. Match the model to the workload, not just the headline rate.
How is this different from the comparison and provider pages?
This page ranks individual models by token cost across providers. The compare pages put two frontier flagships head-to-head on a workload, and the provider directory ranks each provider by the cheapest model it offers.
Where do these model prices come from?
Each rate comes from the provider’s official pricing, normalized into the ByteCosts pricing index and dated (updated August 22, 2026). Rows carry a source link and a confidence grade. Prices are list prices, so verify the provider source before production billing decisions.
AI model pricing: cheapest LLMs by token cost. ByteCosts. Updated August 22, 2026. https://bytecosts.com/pricing/