The AI Tokens

AI Pricing Comparison 2026

Complete cost analysis of 45+ AI models across 9 major providers

Budget Tier Comparison

ModelInput CostOutput CostContextBest For
GPT-5 nano$0.05$0.4064KUltra-high volume
Gemini 2.0 Flash$0.10$0.401MMultimodal agents
GPT-5 mini$0.25$2.00128KHigh-volume tasks
Gemini 2.5 Flash$0.30$2.501MReasoning + context
Claude Haiku 4.5$1.00$5.00200KSafety + quality

Premium Tier Comparison

ModelInput CostOutput CostContextBest For
GPT-5$1.25$10.00200KGeneral flagship
Gemini 2.5 Pro$1.25$10.002MLarge documents
GPT-5.2$1.75$14.00200KMaximum quality
Claude Sonnet 4.6$3.00$15.00200KReasoning + safety
Claude Opus 4.6$5.00$25.00200KUltimate quality

2026 AI Pricing Trends

The AI pricing landscape in 2026 has become more competitive and diverse, with significant developments across all major providers:

Key Pricing Trends

  • Ultra-Budget Options: New models under $0.25/1M input tokens enable high-volume applications
  • Context Window Competition: Google leads with 2M token windows at competitive pricing
  • Specialized Models: Coding, reasoning, and search-enhanced models at various price points
  • Open Source Access: Together AI and others provide hosted access to open source models

Provider Positioning

  • OpenAI: Comprehensive GPT-5 family from ultra-budget to flagship
  • Anthropic: Premium pricing for superior safety and reasoning
  • Google: Competitive pricing with massive context windows
  • xAI: Unique reasoning vs non-reasoning model variants
  • Meta: Open source models with hosted options

Cost Optimization Strategies

  • Use tiered model architecture: budget models for simple tasks, premium for complex ones
  • Leverage large context windows to reduce API calls
  • Consider open source models for cost-sensitive applications
  • Optimize prompts and use caching where available