LLM Pricing

Cheapest LLM APIs 2026: 9 Providers Ranked

Real token prices from official provider pages. All prices per 1 million tokens, verified April 26, 2026.

9Providers

$0.05Cheapest Input

$2.5Most Expensive

2026Data Year

By ComparEdge Research· 9 providers compared

Verified April 26, 2026

Full Pricing Table
Visual Price Chart
Top Provider Breakdown
How to Choose
FAQ

We compared real API token prices across 9 LLM providers. Llama (Meta) offers the cheapest input tokens at $0.05/1M — 50× cheaper than GPT-4o at $2.5/1M.

Key Takeaway: For budget-conscious projects, open-source models via API (Llama, DeepSeek) can cut costs by 10-50× vs premium models. But premium models often deliver significantly better results for complex tasks.

Full LLM API Pricing Table (2026)

Provider	Input/1M	Output/1M	Models	Rating
1Llama (Meta)	$0.05	$0.1	Llama 3.1 405B (via providers), Llama 3.1 70B (via providers)	★★★★½ 4.7
2Replicate	$0.1	$0.5	Various models	★★★★½ 4.5
3Mistral AI	$0.1	$0.3	Mistral Large, Mistral Small	★★★★½ 4.5
4DeepSeek	$0.14	$0.28	DeepSeek V4 Flash, DeepSeek V4 Pro	★★★★½ 4.5
5Google AI Studio	$0.15	$0.6	Gemini 2.5 Pro, Gemini 2.5 Flash	★★★★½ 4.5
6Cohere	$0.15	$0.6	Command R+, Command R	★★★★½ 4.5
7OpenAI API	$0.75	$4.5	GPT-5.4, GPT-5.4 mini	★★★★½ 4.8
8Anthropic API (Claude)	$1	$5	Claude Opus 4.7, Claude Sonnet 4.6	★★★★½ 4.7
9GPT-4o	$2.5	$10	GPT-4o (API)	★★★★½ 4.7

Source: Official provider pricing pages. All prices USD per 1M tokens. Updated April 26, 2026. See live pricing on ComparEdge →

Input Token Prices: Visual Comparison

Llama (Meta)

$0.05

Replicate

$0.1

Mistral AI

$0.1

DeepSeek

$0.14

Google AI Studio

$0.15

Cohere

$0.15

OpenAI API

$0.75

Anthropic API (Claude)

GPT-4o

$2.5

Top Provider Deep Dive

1. Llama (Meta) ★★★★½ 4.7/5

From $0.05/1M input ✓ Free tier

Meta's open-source large language model - the most popular foundation model for self-hosting and fine-tuning.

Model	Input/1M	Output/1M
Llama 3.1 405B (via providers)	$0.19	$0.49
Llama 3.1 70B (via providers)	$0.05	$0.1

Open-source. Token prices vary by cloud provider (AWS, Azure, Together AI).

Full Llama (Meta) pricing on ComparEdge →

2. Replicate ★★★★½ 4.5/5

From $0.1/1M input ✓ Free tier

Cloud platform for running and deploying AI models via simple API, with 50K+ community and custom models.

Model	Input/1M	Output/1M
Various models	$0.1	$0.5

Full Replicate pricing on ComparEdge →

3. Mistral AI ★★★★½ 4.5/5

From $0.1/1M input

European AI company offering powerful open-source and commercial language models with a strong focus on efficiency and data sovereignty.

Model	Input/1M	Output/1M
Mistral Large	$2	$6
Mistral Small	$0.1	$0.3

Full Mistral AI pricing on ComparEdge →

4. DeepSeek ★★★★½ 4.5/5

From $0.14/1M input ✓ Free tier

Open-source AI model from China rivaling GPT-4 at a fraction of the cost - shook the AI world in 2025.

Model	Input/1M	Output/1M
DeepSeek V4 Flash	$0.14	$0.28
DeepSeek V4 Pro	$1.74	$3.48

Full DeepSeek pricing on ComparEdge →

5. Google AI Studio ★★★★½ 4.5/5

From $0.15/1M input ✓ Free tier

Google's free development environment for experimenting with Gemini models and generating API keys for production deployment.

Model	Input/1M	Output/1M
Gemini 2.5 Pro	$1.25	$10
Gemini 2.5 Flash	$0.15	$0.6

Full Google AI Studio pricing on ComparEdge →

6. Cohere ★★★★½ 4.5/5

From $0.15/1M input ✓ Free tier

Enterprise NLP platform offering Command, Embed, and Rerank models designed for RAG pipelines and business search applications.

Model	Input/1M	Output/1M
Command R+	$2.5	$10
Command R	$0.15	$0.6

Full Cohere pricing on ComparEdge →

7. OpenAI API ★★★★½ 4.8/5

From $0.75/1M input

Developer API platform providing access to GPT-4o, DALL-E 3, Whisper, embeddings, and fine-tuning capabilities.

Model	Input/1M	Output/1M
GPT-5.4	$2.5	$15
GPT-5.4 mini	$0.75	$4.5

Full OpenAI API pricing on ComparEdge →

How to Choose the Right LLM API

Raw token price is just one factor. Here's what else matters:

Quality vs cost: Cheaper models trade off reasoning quality. Premium models (GPT-4, Claude Opus) handle complex tasks much better.
Output tokens cost more: Most providers charge 3-5× more for output than input. If your app generates long responses, compare output costs carefully.
Context window: Longer context = more tokens = higher costs. A 128K context model is useless if your prompts are 1K tokens.
Free tiers for prototyping: Google AI Studio and Replicate have generous free tiers — start there before committing.
Open source option: Self-host Llama 3.1 on GPU cloud for zero per-token cost (you pay for compute instead).

Our Pick for Cheap + Quality: DeepSeek V3 at $0.14/1M input tokens offers near-GPT-4 quality at a fraction of the cost. Best for high-volume applications.

Compare LLMs Interactively

See radar charts, feature matrices, and live pricing for all 9+ LLM providers on ComparEdge:

Compare All LLMs → Side-by-Side Compare

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the cheapest LLM API in 2026?

Llama (Meta) offers the cheapest input tokens at $0.05 per million tokens in our comparison.

How are LLM API prices calculated?

LLM APIs charge per token — roughly 3/4 of a word. Prices are listed per 1 million tokens. Output tokens (the AI's responses) typically cost 2-5x more than input tokens.

Is there a free LLM API?

Yes — Google AI Studio offers free API access with rate limits. Replicate and Hugging Face also have free tiers. Open source models like Llama can be self-hosted for free.

What's the difference between input and output tokens?

Input tokens are the text you send to the model (your prompt). Output tokens are what the AI generates in response. Both are billed separately, with output usually costing more.