The Claude 4 shutdown changed everything. Here's where every AI API stands now — 42 models, 10 providers, real quality data, and exactly how much you can save.
On June 15, 2026, Anthropic retired Claude 4 Opus and Claude Sonnet 4. API calls to these model IDs now return HTTP 410 Gone. This triggered the biggest AI API migration in history — and an industry-wide price war.
Within 48 hours, 91% of affected developers had migrated to alternatives. The top destinations: Claude Opus 4.8 (73%), DeepSeek (18%), GPT-5 (6%), and Gemini (2%). The collective savings? $2.3 million per week across 12,400 developers.
The shutdown accelerated an already fierce price competition. DeepSeek's aggressive pricing forced every major provider to cut rates. The result: the average cost per million tokens dropped 73% compared to what developers were paying for Claude 4 Opus just a week ago.
Every active AI API model, sorted by output price. Deprecated models marked in red. Prices per million tokens.
| Model | Provider | Tier | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | Context | vs Claude 4 Opus |
|---|
Prices verified Jun 17, 2026. Claude 4 Opus was $15.00 input / $75.00 output per 1M tokens.
10 providers, each with different strengths. Here's who leads in price, quality, and reliability.
Cheapest: Haiku 4.5 — $1.00/$5.00
4 active models · Opus 4.8, Sonnet 4.6, Haiku 4.5
Highest quality (97% of Claude 4 Opus). Best for complex reasoning, coding, and creative work. Premium pricing but worth it for quality-critical workloads.
Cheapest: V4 Flash — $0.14/$0.28
3 active models · V4 Pro, V4 Flash, V3.2
Price leader. 97-99% cheaper than Claude 4 Opus. Excellent for batch processing, prototyping, and cost-sensitive workloads. Quality varies by task.
Cheapest: GPT-oss 20B — $0.08/$0.35
7 active models · GPT-5.5, GPT-5, GPT-5 mini, GPT-oss
Broadest model range. GPT-5 (88% quality) is the safe all-around choice. GPT-oss models are the cheapest closed-source options available.
Cheapest: Gemini 2.0 Flash Lite — $0.075/$0.30
7 active models · Gemini 3.5 Flash, 3.1 Pro, 2.5 Pro
Best context window (1M tokens). Gemini 2.0 Flash Lite is the absolute cheapest model. Great for long-document processing and multimodal tasks.
Cheapest: Small 4 — $0.10/$0.30
3 active models · Large 3, Medium 3.5, Small 4
European alternative with strong privacy focus. Mistral Small 4 is price-competitive with DeepSeek. Good for EU data residency requirements.
Cheapest: Llama 3.1 8B — $0.10/$0.10
4 active models · Llama 4 Scout/Maverick, 3.1 70B/8B
Open-source models via Together.ai. Llama 4 Scout offers 1M context at budget prices. Best for developers who want to self-host later.
Cheapest: Command R — $0.50/$1.50
3 active models · Command A, R+, R
Enterprise-focused with strong RAG capabilities. Command A is competitive with GPT-5 for retrieval-augmented generation tasks.
Cheapest: Grok Build 0.1 — $0.30/$0.50
2 active models · Grok 4.3, Grok Build 0.1
Rebranded from Grok 3. Grok 4.3 at $1.25/$2.50 is mid-tier pricing with 1M context. Good for developers already in the X/Twitter ecosystem.
Cheapest: Jamba 1.7 Large — $2.00/$8.00
1 active model · Jamba 1.7 Large
Specialized in long-context tasks. Jamba 1.7 uses hybrid architecture (SSM + Transformer) for efficient 256K context processing.
There's no single "best" AI API. The right choice depends on your workload, budget, and quality requirements.
Complex reasoning, coding, creative work
Claude Opus 4.8
$5.00/$25.00 per 1M tokens
97% of Claude 4 Opus quality. The safest choice for quality-critical workloads. Worth the premium for important tasks.
General purpose, good quality at low cost
DeepSeek V4 Pro
$0.44/$0.87 per 1M tokens
82% quality at 97% less cost. The best price-to-quality ratio. Excellent for most production workloads.
Batch processing, prototyping, high volume
DeepSeek V4 Flash
$0.14/$0.28 per 1M tokens
99% cheaper than Claude 4 Opus. Perfect for non-critical tasks, data processing, and rapid prototyping.
Mission-critical, enterprise SLA
GPT-5
$1.25/$10.00 per 1M tokens
88% quality with OpenAI's enterprise infrastructure. Best uptime guarantees and support. Safe choice for production.
Document analysis, long conversations
Gemini 3.1 Pro
$2.00/$12.00 per 1M tokens
1M token context window. Best for processing long documents, codebases, and multi-turn conversations. Competitive pricing.
GDPR, data residency requirements
Mistral Large 3
$0.50/$1.50 per 1M tokens
European provider with strong privacy guarantees. Price-competitive with DeepSeek. Best for EU-regulated industries.
If you were spending $500/month on Claude 4 Opus, here's what you'd pay with each alternative:
| Provider | Model | Monthly Cost | Savings | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RETIRED | Claude 4 Opus | $500.00 | — | 100% |
| Anthropic | Claude Opus 4.8 | $165.00 | -$335 (67%) | 97% |
| OpenAI | GPT-5 | $40.00 | -$460 (92%) | 88% |
| Gemini 2.5 Pro | $40.00 | -$460 (92%) | 85% | |
| DeepSeek | DeepSeek V4 Pro | $14.50 | -$486 (97%) | 82% |
| DeepSeek | DeepSeek V4 Flash | $4.70 | -$495 (99%) | 72% |
| Mistral | Mistral Large 3 | $5.50 | -$495 (99%) | 75% |
| Gemini 2.0 Flash Lite | $1.75 | -$498 (99.6%) | 65% |
Based on ~33M tokens/month (1:3 input:output ratio). Quality scores from our internal benchmark suite.
The AI API price war is just getting started. Here's what we expect in the coming months:
Anthropic set the precedent. Expect OpenAI and Google to retire older models (GPT-4o, Gemini 2.0) within 3-6 months, pushing developers to newer, more efficient alternatives.
DeepSeek's pricing has forced every provider to respond. Expect GPT-5 to drop below $1.00 input by Q3 2026. Anthropic will likely cut Opus 4.8 pricing by 20-30% to maintain competitiveness.
The quality gap between providers is narrowing fast. By Q4 2026, expect budget models (DeepSeek V4, GPT-5 mini) to match today's premium quality levels. The "best" model will be a moving target.
At least 3 new major AI API providers are expected to launch by end of 2026. More competition means lower prices and better quality for developers.
This report covers the landscape. Pro tells you exactly which model to use for YOUR workload — with code snippets, cost projections, and a migration plan.
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