ComparEdge

AI API Cost Index 2026

Token-level pricing across 14 LLM API providers, covering 24 models. Costs are listed per 1 million tokens and updated monthly from verified vendor pricing pages.

Authored by Oleh KemExpert verified·Published May 16, 2026·Updated May 18, 2026·Our methodology

Key Figures

Cheapest Input

$0.05/1M

Llama (Meta)

Median Input

$1/1M

across all models

Cheapest Output

$0.1/1M

Llama (Meta)

Providers Tracked

14

24 model tiers

Token Pricing by Provider

Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Ranges shown when a provider offers multiple model tiers at different price points.

ProviderInput / 1MOutput / 1MFree Tier
Llama (Meta)Cheapest$0.05 - $0.19$0.1 - $0.49Yes
Llama 3.1$0.05 - $0.19$0.1 - $0.49Yes
Replicate$0.1$0.5Yes
Mistral AI$0.1 - $2$0.3 - $6No
DeepSeek$0.14 - $1.74$0.28 - $3.48Yes
DeepSeek V3$0.14 - $1.74$0.28 - $3.48Yes
Phi-3$0.14$0.56Yes
Google AI Studio$0.15 - $1.25$0.6 - $10Yes
Cohere$0.15 - $2.5$0.6 - $10Yes
OpenAI API$0.75 - $2.5$4.5 - $15No
Anthropic API (Claude)$1 - $5$5 - $25Yes
Mistral Large$2$6Yes
GPT-4o$2.5$10Yes
Command R+$2.5$10Yes

Consumer LLM Plans

These products are sold as monthly subscriptions to end users, not as API access. Token pricing does not apply.

ProductStarting PriceFree Plan
Meta AIFreeYes
Qwen 2.5FreeYes
GroqFreeYes
Mistral Small$0.1/moNo
Claude 3.7 Sonnet$3/moNo
Amazon Nova$4.75/moNo
Grok 2$8/moYes
Hugging Face$9/moYes
Grok$16/moYes
Gemini Advanced$19.99/moNo
ChatGPT$20/moYes
Claude$20/moYes
Google Gemini$20/moYes
Claude 3.5 Sonnet$20/moYes
Gemini 1.5 Pro$20/moYes
OpenAI o1$20/moNo

Key Takeaways

Open-weight models are 50x cheaper than frontier APIs

Llama 3 and Phi-3 start at $0.05-$0.14 per 1M input tokens. GPT-4o and Claude Sonnet start at $2.50-$3.00. For non-critical workloads, the cost difference is difficult to justify.

Output tokens cost 4-10x more than input tokens

Across all providers, output pricing consistently runs higher than input. Generation is computationally expensive. Prompt caching and shorter outputs have a significant impact on total inference cost.

Subscription plans have converged at $20/month

ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, Gemini Advanced, and Grok all price their primary consumer tier at $19.99-$20/month. Premium tiers (o1 Pro, Claude Max) run $100-$200/month for heavy power users.

Free tier availability is high across API providers

Most API providers offer a free tier with rate-limited access. This covers development, evaluation, and low-volume production workloads without any billing commitment.

Compare LLM providers side by side

Feature benchmarks, context windows, and full pricing breakdowns for every model.

Token pricing sourced from vendor API documentation and pricing pages, verified monthly. Full methodology.