Calculate Your Exact Costs
Enter your token usage and see exactly how much each of these 15 models costs for your workload.
Open Cost Calculator →Price Tier Breakdown
These 15 models split into three clear tiers based on input pricing. Here's what you get at each level.
Under $0.15/M input
- GPT-oss 20B at $0.08/$0.35 is the cheapest model
- GPT-oss 20B — $0.08/$0.35 · 128K context · OpenAI's open-source entry
- Llama 3.1 8B — $0.10/$0.10 · 128K context · Open source, lowest total cost
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite — $0.10/$0.40 · 1M context · Google's balanced budget option
- DeepSeek V4 Flash — $0.22/$0.66 · 1M context · Best budget coding model
Best for: high-volume classification, simple Q&A, data extraction, embedding pipelines
$0.15 — $0.30/M input
- GPT-oss 120B — $0.15/$0.60 · 128K context · Strong general-purpose
- GPT-4o mini — $0.15/$0.60 · 128K context · OpenAI's budget workhorse
- Mistral Small 4 ($0.15/$0.60) · 128K context · EU data sovereignty
- Llama 4 Scout — $0.18/$0.59 · 1M context · Open source, MIT license
- DeepSeek V3.2 — $0.23/$0.34 · 128K context · Proven production model
- Llama 4 Maverick — $0.27/$0.85 · 1M context · Open source flagship
Best for: chatbots, content generation, RAG pipelines, code assistance
$0.40 — $1.00/M input
- DeepSeek V4 Pro — $0.66/$1.98 · 1M context · Best value for complex tasks
- Mistral Large 3 — $0.50/$1.50 · 262K context · Strong at RAG and retrieval
- Command R — $0.50/$1.50 · 128K context · Cohere's enterprise RAG model
- Kimi K2.6 — $0.95/$4.00 · 256K context · Excellent reasoning capabilities
Best for: code generation, complex analysis, RAG, nuanced writing
Use Case Recommendations
Different tasks need different models. Here's the best sub-$1 model for each major use case.
Chatbot
$0.22/$0.66 — cheapest model that handles multi-turn conversations naturally. Used in production by thousands of apps.
Code Generation
$0.66/$1.98 — outperforms GPT-4o on coding benchmarks at 80% less cost. Best value coding model under $1.
RAG Pipeline
$0.50/$1.50 — purpose-built for retrieval-augmented generation with strong context following and factual accuracy.
Content Writing
$0.95/$4.00 — excellent reasoning and long-form generation. The most capable writing model under $1/M input.
Data Extraction
$0.10/$0.10 — lowest total cost at $0.20/M. Perfect for high-volume structured extraction tasks.
Multilingual
$0.15/$0.60 — strong multilingual support with EU data sovereignty. Handles 30+ languages well.
No Vendor Lock-in
$0.18/$0.59 — open source MIT license, self-hostable, 1M context window. Full control over your stack.
Highest Volume
$0.10/$0.40 — cheapest input price of any model. When you need to process millions of tokens daily.
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Try APIpulse Free →Provider Breakdown
Eight providers offer models under $1/M input in July 2026. Here's how they compare.
- Google — 2 models. Cheapest input price with Gemini Flash Lite ($0.10). Both models have 1M context windows.
- OpenAI — 3 models. GPT-oss 20B and 120B are open-source. GPT-4o mini is the industry standard budget model.
- Meta — 3 models. Llama 3.1 8B is the lowest total cost. Llama 4 Scout and Maverick both have 1M context, MIT license.
- DeepSeek — 3 models. V4 Flash ($0.22) is best for coding. V3.2 is proven in production. V4 Pro is best value for complex tasks.
- Mistral — 2 models. EU-based with data sovereignty. Mistral Small 4 competes directly with GPT-4o mini.
- Cohere — 1 model. Command R at $0.50 is purpose-built for RAG and enterprise search.
- Moonshot — 1 model. Kimi K2.6 at $0.95 is the most capable reasoning model under $1/M input.
Compare All 129 Models Side by Side
Our comparison tool lets you filter by price, context window, provider, and capabilities across every tracked model.
Open Comparison Tool →The Bottom Line
The era of expensive AI is over. With 15 models under $1/M input tokens, every startup and indie developer can afford production-quality AI. The cheapest option, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite at $0.10/M, lets you process 13 million tokens for a dollar.
Here's the quick decision tree for choosing among these 15 models:
- Lowest possible cost → Llama 3.1 8B ($0.10/$0.10, total $0.20)
- Cheapest input for high volume → Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite ($0.10 input)
- Best production chatbot → DeepSeek V4 Flash ($0.22/$0.66)
- Best budget coding → DeepSeek V4 Pro ($0.66/$1.98)
- No vendor lock-in → Llama 4 Scout ($0.18/$0.59, MIT license)
- EU data sovereignty → Mistral Small 4 ($0.15/$0.60)
- Best RAG on a budget → Command R ($0.50/$1.50)
- Best reasoning under $1 → Kimi K2.6 ($0.95/$4.00)
Use the APIpulse cost calculator to model your exact usage and find the cheapest model that meets your quality bar.
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