These are published vendor list prices, each confirmed on its own date, 2026-09-05 to 2026-09-18, and every row carries the date it was last checked and the page it was checked against. Vendors change prices, and this table is a record of what they said on those dates — not a quote and not an offer. Confirm the current price with the vendor before you commit a budget to it. Everything here is provided as-is; see the Terms.
What changedWhat changed here
Updated this page Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 at lower prices with Fable-level performance, superseding Opus 5 as the newest Opus model.
Update the Opus page to record Opus 5.5 as the newest Opus release at lower prices, superseding Opus 5 as the recommended default.
Updated this page A new open-weights model from Xiaomi is claimed as the strongest available, which is another example of the open-weight tier closing on frontier APIs.
Updated this page OpenAI has shipped GPT-6 Astra, a new flagship business model with computer use and stronger reasoning, which the model boards do not yet list.
Add GPT-6 Astra to the model fact file and boards as a new frontier model with computer use, and update the newest-entry as-of date.
Updated this page DeepSeek has shipped a V4.1-Flash model with a 1M-token context window and multimodal input, superseding the V4 Flash entry on the board.
Update the DeepSeek V4 Flash entry to reflect the V4.1-Flash release with its 1M-token context and multimodal input, or add it as a new model row on the board.
Updated this page DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is reported as a 552B-parameter model with 8B active and a 60% cached-input reduction, tying Opus 5, which changes the cost and capability picture for the DeepSeek Flash entry.
Revise the DeepSeek V4 Flash page to reflect the V4.1 Flash specs — 552B parameters with 8B active and a 60% cached-input cut — and update the cost comparison against Opus 5.
Updated this page GPT-5.6 Luna's price is reported to drop 80% to $0.45 per million tokens, which supersedes the page's current per-million figures.
Change the GPT-5.6 Luna page's $0.20/$1.20 per-million pricing to the reported $0.45 per million, and flag the figure as reported rather than confirmed.
Updated this page Google introduced a new Flash model with an introductory price cut, aimed at coding and agentic workloads.
Add Gemini 3.7 Flash to the frontier and costing model boards with its introductory pricing and coding/agentic positioning.
Updated this page Zhipu released GLM-5.3, claiming a 50% jump in coding capability, with open weights to follow in two weeks.
Add GLM-5.3 to the frontier and costing boards, noting the 50% coding gain and the promised open-weight release.
Three kinds of claim, strongest first. Signal runs every morning.
The fieldEvery model, side by side
Frontier models are not interchangeable. Search or filter by tier, then compare them attribute by attribute — capacity, price, capabilities, and the verdict on each. Prices mirror the Costing table (one source); ◇ marks open-weight; n/d = not disclosed.
ChoosingA quick heuristic
Match the model to the job: Fable 5 / Opus 4.8 / GPT-5.6 Sol for the hardest reasoning and agents; Sonnet 5 / GPT-5.6 Terra as the everyday default; Haiku / Flash / Luna for cheap high-volume work; Gemini 3.1 Pro for multimodal work across four input types; DeepSeek / Kimi K3 when cost dominates; Mistral Large 3 when you need to own the weights. Prove quality on a strong model first, then optimise.
The field moves monthly — treat this as a living snapshot (July 2026) and re-check the leaders each quarter.