Does quality drop near the 1M limit?

Yes, usually. Most 1M-context models lose accuracy on needle-in-haystack tests past 500K tokens. Gemini 2.5 Pro holds up best on long-context benchmarks. For critical work past 500K, test before relying on it.

Is 1M context cheaper than chunked RAG?

Not always. Sending a 1M-token prompt can cost $1 to $15 per call. A well-tuned RAG with 8K context and good retrieval often wins on both cost and accuracy. Use 1M context when retrieval quality is the bottleneck.

How much does a single 1M-token call cost?

Roughly $0.00 on the cheap end and $0.10 on the premium end per 1M input tokens. Output bills on top at the model's output rate.

Can I cache a 1M-token context?

Yes. Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI all support context caching. This is the single biggest cost lever for long-context work: cached reads typically cost 10 to 30 percent of a fresh read.

Context · 1M+

Cheapest 1M context LLMs

Every LLM with a 1,000,000+ token context window. Ranked by input price per 1M tokens.

Models40

Cheapest$0.00

Min context1M tokens

All pricing Pricing home

What this page is

This page lists every priced model with a context window of at least one million tokens. 1M context unlocks whole-repo coding, book-length analysis, and massive multi-document RAG without chunking. The cost per call can be steep, so compare carefully and lean on context caching whenever possible.

Ranked by input price

1M+ context models, cheapest first.

#	Model	Provider	In $/1M	Out $/1M	Context	context	Type
1	ERNIE-5.5-Flash-Preview (free)	baidu	$0.00	$0.00	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
2	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free)	NVIDIA	$0.00	$0.00	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
3	DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (free)	DeepSeek	$0.00	$0.00	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
4	MiniMax M3 (free)	minimax	$0.00	$0.00	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
5	Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (free)	NVIDIA	$0.00	$0.00	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
6	Lyria 3 Pro Preview	Google DeepMind	$0.00	$0.00	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
7	MiniMax M3.1 Flash (free)	minimax	$0.00	$0.00	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
8	Lyria 3 Clip Preview	Google DeepMind	$0.00	$0.00	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
9	Owl Alpha	openrouter	$0.00	$0.00	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
10	Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B (free)	Alibaba Qwen	$0.00	$0.00	1.0M	1.0M	OSS
11	Qwen3.6 Plus Preview (free)	Alibaba Qwen	$0.00	$0.00	1.0M	1.0M	OSS
12	Nemotron 3 Ultra (free)	NVIDIA	$0.00	$0.00	1.0M	1.0M	OSS
13	Qwen3.6 Plus (free)	Alibaba Qwen	$0.00	$0.00	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
14	DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017	DeepSeek	$0.01	$0.50	1.0M	1.0M	OSS
15	GLM 5.2	z-ai	$0.01	$6.80	1.0M	1.0M	OSS
16	DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (batch)	DeepSeek	$0.01	$0.20	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
17	Qwen3.7 Flash	Alibaba Qwen	$0.03	$0.13	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
18	GLM 5.3 Flash	z-ai	$0.04	$0.08	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
19	DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731	DeepSeek	$0.04	$0.30	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
20	GLM 5.3 Flash (batch)	z-ai	$0.05	$0.06	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
21	DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (batch)	DeepSeek	$0.05	$0.14	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
22	Claude Haiku 5.5 (batch)	Anthropic	$0.05	$0.25	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
23	GPT-6 Luna (batch)	OpenAI	$0.05	$0.25	1.1M	1.1M	Closed
24	GPT-6 Luna Pro (batch)	OpenAI	$0.05	$0.25	1.1M	1.1M	Closed
25	GPT-4.1 Nano (batch)	OpenAI	$0.05	$0.20	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
26	Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite (batch)	Google DeepMind	$0.05	$0.20	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
27	DeepSeek V4.1 Flash	DeepSeek	$0.05	$0.57	1.0M	1.0M	OSS
28	Qwen3.5-Flash	Alibaba Qwen	$0.07	$0.26	1.0M	1.0M	OSS
29	GLM 5.3	z-ai	$0.07	$1.40	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
30	Gemini 2.0 Flash Lite	Google DeepMind	$0.07	$0.30	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
31	MiniMax M3.1 Flash	minimax	$0.07	$0.30	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
32	DeepSeek V4 Flash	DeepSeek	$0.09	$0.18	1.0M	1.0M	OSS
33	Mercury 3	Inception	$0.10	$0.35	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
34	Llama 4 Scout	Meta	$0.10	$0.30	1.3M	1.3M	OSS
35	Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite	Google DeepMind	$0.10	$0.40	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
36	GPT-5.6 Luna (batch)	OpenAI	$0.10	$0.60	1.1M	1.1M	Closed
37	Gemini 2.0 Flash	Google DeepMind	$0.10	$0.40	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
38	GPT-6 Luna Pro	OpenAI	$0.10	$0.50	1.1M	1.1M	Closed
39	Muse Ember	Meta	$0.10	$0.50	1.0M	1.0M	Closed
40	GPT-4.1 Nano	OpenAI	$0.10	$0.40	1.0M	1.0M	Closed

Top 3 cheapest 1M context LLMs

Cheapest 1M context

ERNIE-5.5-Flash-Preview (free)

ERNIE-5.5-Flash-Preview (free) delivers a 1.0M context window at $0.00/M input tokens. Suitable for whole-codebase analysis, long legal docs, and book-scale RAG.

Runner up · 1M

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free)

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free) delivers a 1.0M context window at $0.00/M input tokens. Suitable for whole-codebase analysis, long legal docs, and book-scale RAG.

Third · 1M

DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (free)

DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (free) delivers a 1.0M context window at $0.00/M input tokens. Suitable for whole-codebase analysis, long legal docs, and book-scale RAG.

The price gap · cheapest vs most expensive

Cheapest

ERNIE-5.5-Flash-Preview (free)

$0.00/M

$ per 1M input tokens

Why the gap

Premium 1M-context models pay for better accuracy at the tail of the window and faster ingestion. For research and one-shot analysis, the cheap end delivers equivalent answers on most prompts.

Most expensive

Mercury 3

$0.10/M

$ per 1M input tokens

Frequently asked questions

Gemini 2.5 Pro and Flash were first to a real 1M window. Claude Sonnet extended to 1M. Qwen3 Long is a strong open-source option. MiniMax and several Chinese labs also ship 1M+. See the table above for current live list.

Cheapest 1M context LLMs

Ranked by input price

Top 3 cheapest 1M context LLMs

The price gap · cheapest vs most expensive

Frequently asked questions

See also

Other context tiers

Stacks

Compare