LLM API Pricing Trends

As of September 30, 2026, the frontier token price index is 16, 84% below its March 2023 base. The median flagship model costs $6.00 per million blended tokens across 35 active constituents, and 40 entries, exits, or price changes landed in the latest snapshot.

Pricing verified 2026-09-30

Track how LLM API costs have evolved since GPT-4's launch in March 2023. The update ledger records changes between pricing snapshots; the charts show the longer trend.

Largest recorded cut: o3
$40 → $8 output per 1M · −80% on Jul '26
Cheapest frontier output: Grok 4.3
$2.5/1M output · xAI
Frontier price index: 100 → 16
84% below March 2023 · 0% month over month

Latest LLM pricing updates

These rows changed between the previous generated price-index snapshot and the September 30, 2026 snapshot. “Entered” and “exited” describe index membership. Price changes use the index's blended rate: three parts input to one part output.

Model	Tier	Snapshot update
GPT-5.6 Sol	frontier	Cut from $11.25 to $8.00/1M blended (-28.9%)
GPT-5.6 Terra	mid	Cut from $5.63 to $4.50/1M blended (-20%)
GPT-5.6 Luna	budget	Cut from $2.25 to $0.450/1M blended (-80%)
Gemini 3.6 Flash	mid	Cut from $3.00 to $1.50/1M blended (-50%)
Grok 4.1	frontier	Exited the active index
Claude Opus 5.5	frontier	Entered at $8.00/1M blended
Claude Fable 5.1	frontier	Entered at $20.00/1M blended
Grok 4.7	frontier	Entered at $3.00/1M blended
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash	mid	Entered at $0.525/1M blended
Gemini 3.8 Flash	mid	Entered at $1.50/1M blended
Gemini 3.7 Flash	mid	Entered at $1.50/1M blended
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite	budget	Entered at $0.850/1M blended
Grok 4.5	frontier	Entered at $3.00/1M blended
Gemini 3.5 Flash	mid	Entered at $3.38/1M blended
Grok 4.3	frontier	Entered at $1.56/1M blended
Claude Opus 4.7	frontier	Entered at $10.00/1M blended
Claude Opus 4.5	frontier	Entered at $10.00/1M blended
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	budget	Entered at $0.175/1M blended
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite	budget	Entered at $0.563/1M blended
GPT-5 nano	budget	Entered at $0.138/1M blended
GPT-5 (high)	frontier	Entered at $3.44/1M blended
GPT-5.2 Pro	frontier	Entered at $57.75/1M blended
GPT-5.3 Instant	frontier	Entered at $4.81/1M blended
GPT-6 Astra	frontier	Entered at $20.00/1M blended
GPT-6 Sol	frontier	Entered at $4.00/1M blended
GPT-6.1 Sol	frontier	Entered at $4.00/1M blended
GPT-6 Luna	budget	Entered at $0.200/1M blended
Kimi 2.6	frontier	Entered at $1.71/1M blended
Ministral 3 14B	budget	Entered at $0.200/1M blended
Ministral 3 3B	budget	Entered at $0.100/1M blended
Ministral 3 8B	budget	Entered at $0.150/1M blended
Mistral Medium 3	mid	Entered at $0.800/1M blended
Mistral Medium 3.5 128B	mid	Entered at $3.00/1M blended
o1-pro	frontier	Entered at $262.50/1M blended
o4-mini	budget	Entered at $1.93/1M blended
Mistral Small 4	budget	Entered at $0.262/1M blended
GPT-5 mini	budget	Entered at $0.688/1M blended
o3-pro	frontier	Entered at $35.00/1M blended
DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813	frontier	Entered at $1.98/1M blended
Claude Sonnet 5.5	mid	Entered at $4.00/1M blended

Snapshot changes can include a corrected registry value or cohort change. Check the live LLM API pricing comparison before changing a production budget.

Frontier token price trend (March 2023 = 100)

Median blended token price across active frontier models, normalized to GPT-4 launch pricing. Lower means cheaper.

Full index, sub-indexes and constituents →

CSV JSON

Current LLM API Prices

All models from pricing history, sorted by output price (highest first)

Model	Provider	Input $/1M	Output $/1M	Since
o1-pro	OpenAI	$150	$600	Sep '26
GPT-5.4 Pro	OpenAI	$30	$180	Apr '26
GPT-5.5 Pro	OpenAI	$30	$180	Apr '26
GPT-5.2 Pro	OpenAI	$21	$168	Sep '26
o3-pro	OpenAI	$20	$80	Sep '26
Claude 3 Opus	Anthropic	$15	$75	Mar '24
GPT-4	OpenAI	$30	$60	Mar '23
o1	OpenAI	$15	$60	Sep '24
Claude Fable 5	Anthropic	$10	$50	Jun '26
Claude Fable 5.1	Anthropic	$10	$50	Sep '26
GPT-6 Astra	OpenAI	$10	$50	Sep '26
GPT-4 Turbo	OpenAI	$10	$30	Nov '23
GPT-5.5	OpenAI	$5	$30	Apr '26
Claude Opus 4.6	Anthropic	$5	$25	Feb '26
Claude Opus 4.8	Anthropic	$5	$25	May '26
Claude Opus 5	Anthropic	$5	$25	Jul '26
Claude Opus 4.7	Anthropic	$5	$25	Sep '26
Claude Opus 4.5	Anthropic	$5	$25	Sep '26
Claude Opus 5.5	Anthropic	$4	$20	Sep '26
GPT-5.6 Sol	OpenAI	$4	$20	Jul '26
GPT-5.4	OpenAI	$2.5	$15	Apr '26
Claude 3 Sonnet	Anthropic	$3	$15	Mar '24
Claude 3.5 Sonnet	Anthropic	$3	$15	Jun '24
Claude Sonnet 4.5	Anthropic	$3	$15	Sep '25
Claude Sonnet 4.6	Anthropic	$3	$15	Feb '26
Grok 4.1	xAI	$3	$15	Feb '26
Kimi K3	Moonshot AI	$3	$15	Jul '26
GPT-5.2	OpenAI	$1.75	$14	Feb '26
GPT-5.3 Instant	OpenAI	$1.75	$14	Sep '26
Gemini 3.1 Pro	Google	$2	$12	Apr '26
GPT-5.6 Terra	OpenAI	$2	$12	Jul '26
GPT-4o	OpenAI	$2.5	$10	May '24
GPT-5.1	OpenAI	$1.25	$10	Sep '25
Gemini 2.5 Pro	Google	$1.25	$10	Jun '25
Claude Sonnet 5	Anthropic	$2	$10	Jun '26
GPT-5 (high)	OpenAI	$1.25	$10	Sep '26
GPT-6 Sol	OpenAI	$2	$10	Sep '26
GPT-6.1 Sol	OpenAI	$2	$10	Sep '26
Claude Sonnet 5.5	Anthropic	$2	$10	Sep '26
Gemini 3.5 Flash	Google	$1.5	$9	Sep '26
o3	OpenAI	$2	$8	Apr '25
GPT-4.1	OpenAI	$2	$8	Apr '25
Mistral Medium 3.5 128B	Mistral	$1.5	$7.5	Sep '26
Grok 4.6	xAI	$2	$6	Aug '26
Grok 4.7	xAI	$2	$6	Sep '26
Grok 4.5	xAI	$2	$6	Sep '26
Claude Haiku 4.5	Anthropic	$1	$5	Sep '25
Gemini 1.5 Pro	Google	$1.25	$5	May '24
GPT-5.4 mini	OpenAI	$0.75	$4.5	Apr '26
o3-mini	OpenAI	$1.1	$4.4	Apr '25
o4-mini	OpenAI	$1.1	$4.4	Sep '26
Kimi 2.6	Moonshot AI	$0.95	$4	Sep '26
DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813	DeepSeek	$1.32	$3.96	Sep '26
Gemini 3.6 Flash	Google	$0.75	$3.75	Jul '26
Gemini 3.8 Flash	Google	$0.75	$3.75	Sep '26
Gemini 3.7 Flash	Google	$0.75	$3.75	Sep '26
Gemini 3 Flash	Google	$0.5	$3	Dec '25
Gemini 2.5 Flash	Google	$0.3	$2.5	Dec '24
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite	Google	$0.3	$2.5	Sep '26
Grok 4.3	xAI	$1.25	$2.5	Sep '26
DeepSeek R1	DeepSeek	$0.55	$2.19	Jan '25
Mistral Medium 3	Mistral	$0.4	$2	Sep '26
GPT-5 mini	OpenAI	$0.25	$2	Sep '26
GPT-4.1 mini	OpenAI	$0.4	$1.6	Apr '25
Mistral Large 3	Mistral	$0.5	$1.5	Feb '25
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite	Google	$0.25	$1.5	Sep '26
Claude 3 Haiku	Anthropic	$0.25	$1.25	Mar '24
GPT-5.4 nano	OpenAI	$0.2	$1.25	Mar '26
GPT-5.6 Luna	OpenAI	$0.2	$1.2	Jul '26
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash	DeepSeek	$0.3	$1.2	Sep '26
DeepSeek V3	DeepSeek	$0.27	$1.1	Jan '25
GPT-4o mini	OpenAI	$0.15	$0.6	Jul '24
Mistral Small 4	Mistral	$0.15	$0.6	Sep '26
Grok 3 Mini	xAI	$0.3	$0.5	Apr '25
GPT-6 Luna	OpenAI	$0.1	$0.5	Sep '26
GPT-4.1 nano	OpenAI	$0.1	$0.4	Apr '25
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	Google	$0.1	$0.4	Sep '26
GPT-5 nano	OpenAI	$0.05	$0.4	Sep '26
Gemini 1.5 Flash	Google	$0.075	$0.3	May '24
Ministral 3 14B	Mistral	$0.2	$0.2	Sep '26
Ministral 3 8B	Mistral	$0.15	$0.15	Sep '26
Ministral 3 3B	Mistral	$0.1	$0.1	Sep '26

Current LLM API prices

Per million tokens, highest output price first

Model / providerInput / output

o1-proOpenAI · since Sep '26

$150 input$600 output

GPT-5.4 ProOpenAI · since Apr '26

$30 input$180 output

GPT-5.5 ProOpenAI · since Apr '26

$30 input$180 output

GPT-5.2 ProOpenAI · since Sep '26

$21 input$168 output

o3-proOpenAI · since Sep '26

$20 input$80 output

Claude 3 OpusAnthropic · since Mar '24

$15 input$75 output

GPT-4OpenAI · since Mar '23

$30 input$60 output

o1OpenAI · since Sep '24

$15 input$60 output

Claude Fable 5Anthropic · since Jun '26

$10 input$50 output

Claude Fable 5.1Anthropic · since Sep '26

$10 input$50 output

GPT-6 AstraOpenAI · since Sep '26

$10 input$50 output

GPT-4 TurboOpenAI · since Nov '23

$10 input$30 output

GPT-5.5OpenAI · since Apr '26

$5 input$30 output

Claude Opus 4.6Anthropic · since Feb '26

$5 input$25 output

Claude Opus 4.8Anthropic · since May '26

$5 input$25 output

Claude Opus 5Anthropic · since Jul '26

$5 input$25 output

Claude Opus 4.7Anthropic · since Sep '26

$5 input$25 output

Claude Opus 4.5Anthropic · since Sep '26

$5 input$25 output

Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic · since Sep '26

$4 input$20 output

GPT-5.6 SolOpenAI · since Jul '26

$4 input$20 output

GPT-5.4OpenAI · since Apr '26

$2.5 input$15 output

Claude 3 SonnetAnthropic · since Mar '24

$3 input$15 output

Claude 3.5 SonnetAnthropic · since Jun '24

$3 input$15 output

Claude Sonnet 4.5Anthropic · since Sep '25

$3 input$15 output

Claude Sonnet 4.6Anthropic · since Feb '26

$3 input$15 output

Grok 4.1xAI · since Feb '26

$3 input$15 output

Kimi K3Moonshot AI · since Jul '26

$3 input$15 output

GPT-5.2OpenAI · since Feb '26

$1.75 input$14 output

GPT-5.3 InstantOpenAI · since Sep '26

$1.75 input$14 output

Gemini 3.1 ProGoogle · since Apr '26

$2 input$12 output

GPT-5.6 TerraOpenAI · since Jul '26

$2 input$12 output

GPT-4oOpenAI · since May '24

$2.5 input$10 output

GPT-5.1OpenAI · since Sep '25

$1.25 input$10 output

Gemini 2.5 ProGoogle · since Jun '25

$1.25 input$10 output

Claude Sonnet 5Anthropic · since Jun '26

$2 input$10 output

GPT-5 (high)OpenAI · since Sep '26

$1.25 input$10 output

GPT-6 SolOpenAI · since Sep '26

$2 input$10 output

GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI · since Sep '26

$2 input$10 output

Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic · since Sep '26

$2 input$10 output

Gemini 3.5 FlashGoogle · since Sep '26

$1.5 input$9 output

o3OpenAI · since Apr '25

$2 input$8 output

GPT-4.1OpenAI · since Apr '25

$2 input$8 output

Mistral Medium 3.5 128BMistral · since Sep '26

$1.5 input$7.5 output

Grok 4.6xAI · since Aug '26

$2 input$6 output

Grok 4.7xAI · since Sep '26

$2 input$6 output

Grok 4.5xAI · since Sep '26

$2 input$6 output

Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic · since Sep '25

$1 input$5 output

Gemini 1.5 ProGoogle · since May '24

$1.25 input$5 output

GPT-5.4 miniOpenAI · since Apr '26

$0.75 input$4.5 output

o3-miniOpenAI · since Apr '25

$1.1 input$4.4 output

o4-miniOpenAI · since Sep '26

$1.1 input$4.4 output

Kimi 2.6Moonshot AI · since Sep '26

$0.95 input$4 output

DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813DeepSeek · since Sep '26

$1.32 input$3.96 output

Gemini 3.6 FlashGoogle · since Jul '26

$0.75 input$3.75 output

Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogle · since Sep '26

$0.75 input$3.75 output

Gemini 3.7 FlashGoogle · since Sep '26

$0.75 input$3.75 output

Gemini 3 FlashGoogle · since Dec '25

$0.5 input$3 output

Gemini 2.5 FlashGoogle · since Dec '24

$0.3 input$2.5 output

Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteGoogle · since Sep '26

$0.3 input$2.5 output

Grok 4.3xAI · since Sep '26

$1.25 input$2.5 output

DeepSeek R1DeepSeek · since Jan '25

$0.55 input$2.19 output

Mistral Medium 3Mistral · since Sep '26

$0.4 input$2 output

GPT-5 miniOpenAI · since Sep '26

$0.25 input$2 output

GPT-4.1 miniOpenAI · since Apr '25

$0.4 input$1.6 output

Mistral Large 3Mistral · since Feb '25

$0.5 input$1.5 output

Gemini 3.1 Flash-LiteGoogle · since Sep '26

$0.25 input$1.5 output

Claude 3 HaikuAnthropic · since Mar '24

$0.25 input$1.25 output

GPT-5.4 nanoOpenAI · since Mar '26

$0.2 input$1.25 output

GPT-5.6 LunaOpenAI · since Jul '26

$0.2 input$1.2 output

DeepSeek V4.1 FlashDeepSeek · since Sep '26

$0.3 input$1.2 output

DeepSeek V3DeepSeek · since Jan '25

$0.27 input$1.1 output

GPT-4o miniOpenAI · since Jul '24

$0.15 input$0.6 output

Mistral Small 4Mistral · since Sep '26

$0.15 input$0.6 output

Grok 3 MinixAI · since Apr '25

$0.3 input$0.5 output

GPT-6 LunaOpenAI · since Sep '26

$0.1 input$0.5 output

GPT-4.1 nanoOpenAI · since Apr '25

$0.1 input$0.4 output

Gemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGoogle · since Sep '26

$0.1 input$0.4 output

GPT-5 nanoOpenAI · since Sep '26

$0.05 input$0.4 output

Gemini 1.5 FlashGoogle · since May '24

$0.075 input$0.3 output

Ministral 3 14BMistral · since Sep '26

$0.2 input$0.2 output

Ministral 3 8BMistral · since Sep '26

$0.15 input$0.15 output

Ministral 3 3BMistral · since Sep '26

$0.1 input$0.1 output

Prices per million tokens from official API pricing. Does not include batch, cached, or volume discounts.

Questions

How much have LLM API prices dropped?

The frontier LLM token price index is 16 as of September 30, 2026, which is 84% below its March 2023 base of 100. The index uses a 3:1 input-to-output blend and the median price across active frontier models, so it measures the cohort rather than one provider's cheapest SKU.

Which LLM provider is cheapest right now?

Grok 4.3 from xAI has the lowest current output rate in this page's selected frontier history set at $2.5/1M tokens. That is not a universal cheapest-model verdict: the live comparison includes more models, while this history page keeps only rows with usable dated snapshots.

Why do reasoning models cost more?

Reasoning models like o1, o3, and DeepSeek R1 generate internal chain-of-thought tokens before producing the final answer. These thinking tokens consume compute but are billed as output tokens, making the effective cost per useful output token significantly higher.

Will LLM prices keep dropping?

There is no guarantee of a straight decline. Frontier token prices remain 84% below March 2023, but the current index moved down 0% month over month as the active model mix and published rates changed. Use the monthly series instead of assuming every new model will be cheaper.

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Latest LLM pricing updates

Frontier token price trend (March 2023 = 100)

Output price history by model

Current LLM API Prices

Current LLM API prices

Questions

Get the weekly price-change file