Budget · Under $5/M
LLMs under $5 per million tokens
Every model priced below $5 per 1M input tokens. Ranked by benchmark score within budget.
Models40
Top quality81.9
Max price$5.00/M
What this page is
This page ranks every model with input priced below $5 per million tokens by benchmark score. The sub-$5 tier is the pragmatic production sweet spot · it catches strong mid-frontier models (Sonnet, GPT-5 mini, Gemini 2.5 Pro) as well as every open-source option. For most real-world apps, the top entry here will match Opus or GPT-5 on 90% of tasks at a fraction of the cost.
Ranked by quality within budget
Input under $5/M, highest benchmark score first.
| # | Model | In $/1M | Out $/1M | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  GPT-5 Chat | $1.25 | $10.00 | Closed |
| 2 |  Qwen3.5 397B A17B | $0.39 | $2.34 | OSS |
| 3 |  DeepSeek V3.2 Speciale | $0.40 | $1.20 | OSS |
| 4 |  Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview 05-06 | $1.25 | $10.00 | Closed |
| 5 |  Step 3.5 Flash | $0.10 | $0.30 | OSS |
| 6 |  MiMo-V2-Flash | $0.09 | $0.29 | OSS |
| 7 | GPT-5.1-Codex-Max | $1.25 | $10.00 | Closed |
| 8 | o4 Mini High | $1.10 | $4.40 | Closed |
| 9 | Qwen3.6 Plus | $0.33 | $1.95 | OSS |
| 10 | GPT-5.2-Codex | $1.75 | $14.00 | Closed |
| 11 |  GLM 5.1 | $0.95 | $3.15 | OSS |
| 12 |  Palmyra X5 | $0.60 | $6.00 | Closed |
| 13 |  Grok 3 Beta | $3.00 | $15.00 | Closed |
| 14 |  MiniMax M2 | $0.26 | $1.00 | OSS |
| 15 | GLM 4.5 | $0.60 | $2.20 | OSS |
| 16 | gpt-oss-120b (free) | $0.00 | $0.00 | OSS |
| 17 | GPT-5.1-Codex | $1.25 | $10.00 | Closed |
| 18 | gpt-oss-20b | $0.03 | $0.14 | OSS |
| 19 | gpt-oss-20b (free) | $0.00 | $0.00 | OSS |
| 20 | Qwen3 30B A3B Thinking 2507 | $0.08 | $0.40 | OSS |
| 21 | Grok 3 Mini Beta | $0.30 | $0.50 | Closed |
| 22 | Gemini 2.0 Flash Lite | $0.07 | $0.30 | Closed |
| 23 | MiniMax M2.7 | $0.30 | $1.20 | OSS |
| 24 | Gemma 4 31B | $0.13 | $0.38 | OSS |
| 25 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | $0.10 | $0.78 | OSS |
| 26 | Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | $2.00 | $12.00 | Closed |
| 27 | GPT-5.1-Codex-Mini | $0.25 | $2.00 | Closed |
| 28 | o3 Mini High | $1.10 | $4.40 | Closed |
| 29 |  LongCat Flash Chat | $0.20 | $0.80 | OSS |
| 30 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | $0.10 | $0.40 | Closed |
| 31 | DeepSeek V3 | $0.32 | $0.89 | OSS |
| 32 | GPT-5.4 | $2.50 | $15.00 | Closed |
| 33 | Qwen3 Max | $0.78 | $3.90 | OSS |
| 34 | Qwen3 32B | $0.08 | $0.24 | OSS |
| 35 | MiMo-V2-Pro | $1.00 | $3.00 | Closed |
| 36 | R1 0528 | $0.50 | $2.15 | OSS |
| 37 |  Mixtral 8x7B Instruct | $0.54 | $0.54 | OSS |
| 38 | GLM 5 | $0.72 | $2.30 | OSS |
| 39 |  ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking | $0.07 | $0.28 | OSS |
| 40 | Qwen3 8B | $0.05 | $0.40 | OSS |
Top 3 best-quality sub-$5 models
Best quality under $5
GPT-5 Chat
input
$1.25/M
output
$10.00/M
GPT-5 Chat scores 81.9 on our composite while pricing below $5/M input. Strong default for production workloads with budget constraints.
Runner up
Qwen3.5 397B A17B
input
$0.39/M
output
$2.34/M
Qwen3.5 397B A17B scores 78.4 on our composite while pricing below $5/M input. Strong default for production workloads with budget constraints.
Third
DeepSeek V3.2 Speciale
input
$0.40/M
output
$1.20/M
DeepSeek V3.2 Speciale scores 78.2 on our composite while pricing below $5/M input. Strong default for production workloads with budget constraints.
The price gap · cheapest vs most expensive
Cheapest
GPT-5 Chat
$1.25/M
$ per 1M input tokens
Why the gap
Within this tier, price differences are small but quality varies a lot. The top entry (ranked by avg score) often beats several "premium" models that sit above $5.
Most expensive
Grok 3 Beta
$3.00/M
$ per 1M input tokens
Frequently asked questions
Mid-tier. Frontier models run $10 to $75 per million. Bulk open-source runs under $1. $5 catches capable mid-size models (Sonnet at some providers, GPT-5 mini, Gemini 2.5 Pro at scale).