Value ranking
Best Cheap LLMs (Under $1 per Million Tokens) in October 2026
As of October 2026, GPT-5.6 Luna leads the Noometry Index with a score of 54.6, ahead of DeepSeek V4 Pro at 54.3. The two are close enough that new results could swap them.
Last verified
Ranked models with a blended list price of $1 or less per million tokens (three parts input to one part output).
- GPT-5.6 Luna 54.6
- DeepSeek V4 Pro 54.3
- DeepSeek V4 Flash 53.6
- GPT-6 Luna 53.3
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 52.8
- GLM-5.3-Flash 51.8
- MiMo-V2.6-Pro 50.3
- Claude Haiku 5.5 49.5
- MiMo-V2.6-Flash 48.5
- Kimi K2.5 48.1
Full ranking
115 models
| 1 | OpenAI GPT-5.6 Luna | OpenAI | Proprietary | 1.05M | 54.6 | $0.20 | $1.20 | 121 | 12 |
| 2 |  DeepSeek DeepSeek V4 Pro | DeepSeek | Open | 1M | 54.3 | $0.66 | $1.98 | 54.9 | 16 |
| 3 | DeepSeek DeepSeek V4 Flash | DeepSeek | Open | 1M | 53.6 | $0.15 | $0.60 | 204 | 6 |
| 4 | OpenAI GPT-6 Luna | OpenAI | Proprietary | 1.05M | 53.3 | $0.10 | $0.50 | 266 | — |
| 5 | DeepSeek DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | DeepSeek | Open | 1M | 52.8 | $0.15 | $0.60 | 201 | — |
| 6 | Z.ai (Zhipu) GLM-5.3-Flash | Z.ai (Zhipu) | Open | 1M | 51.8 | $0.15 | $0.50 | 218 | — |
| 7 | Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Pro | Xiaomi | Open | 1.05M | 50.3 | $0.43 | $0.87 | 92.5 | — |
| 8 | Anthropic Claude Haiku 5.5 | Anthropic | Proprietary | 1M | 49.5 | $0.10 | $0.50 | 247 | — |
| 9 | Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6-Flash | Xiaomi | Open | 1.05M | 48.5 | $0.14 | $0.28 | 277 | — |
| 10 | Moonshot AI Kimi K2.5 | Moonshot AI | Open | 262K | 48.1 | $0.45 | $2.25 | 53.4 | 66 |
| 11 | Thinking Machines Lab Inkling-Small | Thinking Machines Lab | Open | 524K | 46.5 | $0.45 | $1.20 | 72.9 | — |
| 12 |  Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3.7 Plus | Alibaba (Qwen) | Proprietary | 1M | 45.3 | $0.40 | $1.60 | 64.8 | — |
| 13 | Xiaomi MiMo-V2.5-Pro | Xiaomi | Open | 1.05M | 45.2 | $0.43 | $0.87 | 83.2 | — |
| 14 | DeepSeek DeepSeek-V3.2-Exp | DeepSeek | Open | 164K | 44.3 | $0.26 | $0.38 | 153 | 16 |
| 15 |  Tencent Hy3 | Tencent | Open | 262K | 44.2 | $0.0825 | $0.33 | 306 | — |
| 16 |  MiniMax MiniMax-M3 | MiniMax | Open | 1M | 43.8 | $0.30 | $1.20 | 83.4 | — |
| 17 | Xiaomi MiMo-V2-Omni | Xiaomi | Proprietary | 262K | 43.6 | $0.14 | $0.28 | 249 | — |
| 18 |  Google Gemma 4 31B IT | Open | 262K | 43.5 | $0.09 | $0.34 | 286 | 3 | |
| 19 | Google Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Open | 262K | 43.5 | $0.0675 | $0.23 | 407 | — | |
| 20 | Xiaomi MiMo-V2.5 | Xiaomi | Open | 1.05M | 43.4 | $0.14 | $0.28 | 248 | — |
| 21 | DeepSeek DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus | DeepSeek | Open | 164K | 43.1 | $0.27 | $1 | 95.4 | 30 |
| 22 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Alibaba (Qwen) | Open | 131K | 43.0 | $0.50 | $2 | 49.2 | 111 |
| 23 | Xiaomi MiMo-V2-Pro | Xiaomi | Proprietary | 1.05M | 43.0 | $0.43 | $0.87 | 79 | — |
| 24 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3.5 Plus | Alibaba (Qwen) | Proprietary | 1M | 42.9 | $0.40 | $2.40 | 47.6 | — |
| 25 | DeepSeek DeepSeek-V3.1 | DeepSeek | Open | 164K | 42.8 | $0.25 | $0.95 | 101 | 328 |
| 26 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3.5-Flash | Alibaba (Qwen) | Proprietary | 1M | 42.5 | $0.10 | $0.40 | 243 | — |
| 27 |  NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra | NVIDIA | Open | 262K | 42.5 | $0.50 | $2.20 | 45.9 | — |
| 28 | DeepSeek DeepSeek-R1 | DeepSeek | Proprietary | 164K | 42.3 | $0.50 | $2.15 | 46.4 | 10 |
| 29 |  StepFun Step 3.5 Flash | StepFun | Open | 256K | 42.3 | $0.10 | $0.30 | 282 | — |
| 30 |  Upstage Solar Pro4 | Upstage | Proprietary | 524K | 42.1 | $0.30 | $1.20 | 80.2 | — |
| 31 | Z.ai (Zhipu) GLM-4.5 | Z.ai (Zhipu) | Open | 131K | 42.0 | $0.60 | $2.20 | 42 | 32 |
| 32 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3.5 35B-A3B | Alibaba (Qwen) | Open | 262K | 42.0 | $0.25 | $2 | 61 | — |
| 33 | Z.ai (Zhipu) GLM-4.7 | Z.ai (Zhipu) | Open | 205K | 42.0 | $0.60 | $2.20 | 42 | — |
| 34 | OpenAI GPT-5.4 nano | OpenAI | Proprietary | 400K | 41.9 | $0.20 | $1.25 | 90.6 | 19 |
| 35 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3.5 27B | Alibaba (Qwen) | Open | 262K | 41.9 | $0.30 | $2.40 | 50.7 | — |
| 36 | OpenAI GPT-5 Mini | OpenAI | Proprietary | 400K | 41.8 | $0.25 | $2 | 60.9 | 3 |
| 37 | Google Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Proprietary | 1.05M | 41.5 | $0.30 | $2.50 | 48.8 | — | |
| 38 | Z.ai (Zhipu) GLM-4.6 | Z.ai (Zhipu) | Open | 205K | 41.4 | $0.60 | $2.20 | 41.4 | 12 |
| 39 | xAI Grok 4.1 Fast | xAI | Proprietary | 128K | 41.4 | $0.20 | $0.50 | 150 | — |
| 40 | Z.ai (Zhipu) GLM-4.6V | Z.ai (Zhipu) | Open | 128K | 41.3 | $0.30 | $0.90 | 91.8 | — |
| 41 | Xiaomi MiMo-V2-Flash | Xiaomi | Open | 262K | 41.3 | $0.14 | $0.28 | 236 | — |
| 42 | Google Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Proprietary | 1.05M | 40.8 | $0.25 | $1.50 | 72.5 | 10 | |
| 43 | NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | NVIDIA | Open | 262K | 40.6 | $0.05 | $0.20 | 464 | — |
| 44 | IBM Granite 4.2 8B | IBM | Open | 131K | 40.5 | $0.06 | $0.25 | 377 | — |
| 45 | MiniMax MiniMax M1 | MiniMax | Open | 1M | 40.3 | $0.55 | $2.20 | 41.9 | — |
| 46 | NVIDIA Nvidia Llama 3.3 Nemotron Super 49b v1.5 | NVIDIA | Open | 131K | 40.3 | $0.40 | $0.40 | 101 | — |
| 47 | NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super | NVIDIA | Open | 262K | 40.1 | $0.08 | $0.45 | 233 | — |
| 48 | NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | NVIDIA | Open | 262K | 40.0 | $0.05 | $0.20 | 457 | — |
| 49 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3.7 Flash | Alibaba (Qwen) | Proprietary | 1M | 39.9 | $0.03 | $0.13 | 726 | — |
| 50 | Z.ai (Zhipu) GLM-4.5V | Z.ai (Zhipu) | Open | 64K | 39.8 | $0.60 | $1.80 | 44.2 | 34 |
| 51 | Amazon Nova 2 Lite | Amazon | Proprietary | 1M | 39.7 | $0.30 | $2.50 | 46.7 | — |
| 52 | DeepSeek DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale | DeepSeek | Open | 128K | 39.7 | $0.58 | $1.68 | 46.4 | — |
| 53 | DeepSeek DeepSeek-V3 | DeepSeek | Open | 164K | 39.5 | $0.24 | $0.90 | 97.5 | 73 |
| 54 | Google Gemini 2.5 Flash | Proprietary | 1.05M | 39.3 | $0.30 | $2.50 | 46.2 | 152 | |
| 55 | Inception Mercury 2 | Inception | Proprietary | 128K | 39.1 | $0.25 | $0.75 | 104 | — |
| 56 |  Mistral AI Mistral Large 3 | Mistral AI | Open | 262K | 39.1 | $0.25 | $0.75 | 104 | 7 |
| 57 | Z.ai (Zhipu) GLM-4.5-Air | Z.ai (Zhipu) | Open | 131K | 38.9 | $0.20 | $1.10 | 91.6 | 160 |
| 58 | MiniMax MiniMax-M2.1 | MiniMax | Open | 205K | 38.9 | $0.30 | $1.20 | 74.2 | — |
| 59 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3-30B-A3B | Alibaba (Qwen) | Open | 41K | 38.9 | $0.12 | $0.50 | 181 | 42 |
| 60 | Z.ai (Zhipu) GLM-4.7-Flash | Z.ai (Zhipu) | Open | 200K | 38.8 | $0.06 | $0.40 | 268 | — |
| 61 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3.6 Flash | Alibaba (Qwen) | Proprietary | 1M | 38.8 | $0.19 | $1.13 | 91.9 | — |
| 62 |  Arcee AI Trinity Large Thinking | Arcee AI | Open | 262K | 38.6 | $0.25 | $0.80 | 99.7 | — |
| 63 |  Perplexity Sonar | Perplexity | Proprietary | 128K | 38.5 | $1 | $1 | 38.5 | — |
| 64 | MiniMax MiniMax-M2.5 | MiniMax | Open | 205K | 38.3 | $0.30 | $1.20 | 73 | 49 |
| 65 | MiniMax MiniMax-M2.7 | MiniMax | Open | 205K | 37.7 | $0.30 | $1.20 | 71.9 | — |
| 66 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3.6 35B-A3B | Alibaba (Qwen) | Open | 262K | 37.6 | $0.25 | $1.49 | 67.5 | — |
| 67 | MiniMax MiniMax-M2 | MiniMax | Open | 205K | 37.4 | $0.30 | $1.20 | 71.2 | 17 |
| 68 | StepFun Step 3.7 Flash | StepFun | Open | 256K | 37.3 | $0.18 | $1.11 | 89.6 | — |
| 69 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen Plus | Alibaba (Qwen) | Proprietary | 1M | 37.1 | $0.40 | $1.20 | 61.8 | 37 |
| 70 | Google Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Proprietary | 1.05M | 37.0 | $0.10 | $0.40 | 211 | 172 | |
| 71 | OpenAI gpt-oss-120b | OpenAI | Open | 131K | 36.3 | $0.037 | $0.17 | 517 | 55 |
| 72 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3 14B | Alibaba (Qwen) | Open | 131K | 35.5 | $0.35 | $1.40 | 57.9 | 79 |
| 73 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3 Coder Next | Alibaba (Qwen) | Open | 262K | 34.3 | $0.12 | $0.80 | 118 | — |
| 74 | Mistral AI Devstral Small 2505 | Mistral AI | Open | 128K | 34.3 | $0.10 | $0.30 | 229 | 88 |
| 75 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3.5-9B | Alibaba (Qwen) | Open | 262K | 33.8 | $0.10 | $0.15 | 300 | — |
| 76 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen3 8B | Alibaba (Qwen) | Open | 131K | 33.7 | $0.18 | $0.70 | 109 | — |
| 77 | OpenAI GPT-4.1 mini | OpenAI | Proprietary | 1.05M | 33.6 | $0.40 | $1.60 | 48.1 | 86 |
| 78 | OpenAI GPT-5 Nano | OpenAI | Proprietary | 400K | 33.5 | $0.05 | $0.40 | 244 | 4 |
| 79 | Inception Mercury 2.5 | Inception | Proprietary | 260K | 33.5 | $0.04 | $0.15 | 496 | — |
| 80 | Mistral AI Mistral Small | Mistral AI | Open | 262K | 33.4 | $0.15 | $0.60 | 127 | 120 |
| 81 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen2.5-Coder-32B | Alibaba (Qwen) | Open | 33K | 33.4 | $0.66 | $1 | 44.8 | — |
| 82 | OpenAI gpt-oss-20b | OpenAI | Open | 131K | 32.5 | $0.018 | $0.09 | 903 | 96 |
| 83 | Google Gemma 3 12B | Open | 131K | 32.1 | $0.05 | $0.15 | 428 | — | |
| 84 | Amazon Amazon Nova Lite | Amazon | Proprietary | 300K | 31.9 | $0.06 | $0.24 | 304 | — |
| 85 | Mistral AI Mistral Medium 3.1 | Mistral AI | Proprietary | 131K | 31.9 | $0.40 | $2 | 39.8 | — |
| 86 | Mistral AI Mistral Small 3.1 | Mistral AI | Open | 128K | 31.7 | $0.35 | $0.56 | 78.8 | — |
| 87 |  Cohere Command R | Cohere | Open | 128K | 31.4 | $0.15 | $0.60 | 120 | — |
| 88 | Mistral AI Mistral Small 3 | Mistral AI | Open | 33K | 31.2 | $0.05 | $0.08 | 543 | — |
| 89 |  Microsoft Phi-4 | Microsoft | Open | 128K | 31.2 | $0.07 | $0.14 | 357 | — |
| 90 | Mistral AI Mistral Small 3.2 | Mistral AI | Open | 256K | 31.2 | $0.0938 | $0.25 | 235 | 68 |
| 91 |  Meta Llama 4 Maverick | Meta | Open | 128K | 30.9 | $0.19 | $0.65 | 102 | 456 |
| 92 | Microsoft Phi-4 Mini | Microsoft | Open | 128K | 30.9 | $0.075 | $0.30 | 235 | — |
| 93 | Google Gemma 3 27B | Open | 131K | 30.8 | $0.08 | $0.16 | 308 | 62 | |
| 94 | Mistral AI Codestral | Mistral AI | Proprietary | 256K | 30.6 | $0.30 | $0.90 | 68 | 271 |
| 95 | Meta Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct | Meta | Open | 128K | 30.6 | $0.10 | $0.32 | 197 | — |
| 96 | Amazon Amazon Nova Micro | Amazon | Proprietary | 128K | 30.4 | $0.035 | $0.14 | 496 | — |
| 97 | Mistral AI Magistral Small | Mistral AI | Open | 128K | 30.2 | $0.50 | $1.50 | 40.3 | 0 |
| 98 | Meta Llama 3.1-70B | Meta | Open | 128K | 29.6 | $0.40 | $0.40 | 74.1 | — |
| 99 | Google Gemma 2 27B | Open | 8K | 29.4 | $0.65 | $0.65 | 45.2 | — | |
| 100 | IBM Granite 4.0 Micro | IBM | Open | 131K | 29.0 | $0.017 | $0.11 | 713 | — |
| 101 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen2.5 7B Instruct | Alibaba (Qwen) | Open | 131K | 29.0 | $0.17 | $0.70 | 94.6 | — |
| 102 | Meta Llama 3.2 3B | Meta | Open | 131K | 28.9 | $0.05 | $0.33 | 241 | — |
| 103 | Mistral AI Ministral 8B | Mistral AI | Open | 262K | 28.2 | $0.15 | $0.15 | 188 | — |
| 104 | Google Gemma 3 4B | Open | 131K | 28.1 | $0.04 | $0.08 | 563 | 72 | |
| 105 | OpenAI GPT-4.1 nano | OpenAI | Proprietary | 1.05M | 27.9 | $0.10 | $0.40 | 159 | 135 |
| 106 | Meta Llama 4 Scout | Meta | Open | 128K | 27.7 | $0.10 | $0.30 | 184 | 272 |
| 107 | Mistral AI Mixtral 8x7B | Mistral AI | Open | 32K | 27.1 | $0.70 | $0.70 | 38.8 | — |
| 108 | Alibaba (Qwen) Qwen Turbo | Alibaba (Qwen) | Proprietary | 1M | 27.1 | $0.05 | $0.20 | 310 | — |
| 109 | Mistral AI Mistral Nemo | Mistral AI | Open | 128K | 26.4 | $0.15 | $0.15 | 176 | — |
| 110 | Mistral AI Ministral 3B | Mistral AI | Open | 131K | 26.2 | $0.10 | $0.10 | 262 | — |
| 111 | OpenAI GPT-4o mini | OpenAI | Proprietary | 128K | 25.5 | $0.15 | $0.60 | 97.2 | 120 |
| 112 | OpenAI GPT-3.5-turbo | OpenAI | Proprietary | 16K | 23.2 | $0.50 | $1.50 | 31 | — |
| 113 | Mistral AI Mistral 7B | Mistral AI | Open | 8K | 23.0 | $0.25 | $0.25 | 92.2 | — |
| 114 | Meta Llama 3.1-8B | Meta | Open | 128K | 23.0 | $0.05 | $0.08 | 400 | — |
| 115 | Meta Llama 3.2 1B | Meta | Open | 60K | 20.1 | $0.027 | $0.20 | 286 | — |
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Frequently asked questions
What is the best cheap AI model?
As of October 2026, GPT-5.6 Luna leads the Noometry Index with a score of 54.6, ahead of DeepSeek V4 Pro at 54.3. The two are close enough that new results could swap them.
What are the top 5 in this ranking?
GPT-5.6 Luna, DeepSeek V4 Pro, DeepSeek V4 Flash, GPT-6 Luna, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, in that order, as of October 2026.
How is this list ranked?
By the Noometry Index, which is fitted from every public benchmark result and adjusted for how hard each benchmark is. Models need several independent results to be ranked.