Cheapest writing LLMs
Best-value models for general writing · blogs, marketing, drafts, summaries. Ranked by input token price with quality score.
Ranked by input price
General-purpose LLMs, cheapest first.
| # | Model | In $/1M | Out $/1M | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  LFM2-2.6B | $0.01 | $0.02 | OSS |
| 2 | LFM2-8B-A1B | $0.01 | $0.02 | OSS |
| 3 |  Granite 4.0 Micro | $0.02 | $0.11 | OSS |
| 4 |  Gemma 3n 4B | $0.02 | $0.04 | OSS |
| 5 |  Llama 3.1 8B Instruct | $0.02 | $0.05 | OSS |
| 6 |  Mistral Nemo | $0.02 | $0.04 | OSS |
| 7 | Llama 3.2 1B Instruct | $0.03 | $0.20 | OSS |
| 8 | Gemma 2 9B | $0.03 | $0.09 | OSS |
| 9 |  gpt-oss-20b | $0.03 | $0.14 | OSS |
| 10 | LFM2-24B-A2B | $0.03 | $0.12 | OSS |
| 11 | Llama 3 8B Instruct | $0.03 | $0.04 | OSS |
| 12 |  Qwen2.5 Coder 7B Instruct | $0.03 | $0.09 | OSS |
| 13 | Qwen-Turbo | $0.03 | $0.13 | OSS |
| 14 |  Nova Micro 1.0 | $0.04 | $0.14 | Closed |
| 15 |  Command R7B (12-2024) | $0.04 | $0.15 | Closed |
| 16 | gpt-oss-120b | $0.04 | $0.19 | OSS |
| 17 | Gemma 3 12B | $0.04 | $0.13 | OSS |
| 18 | Gemma 3 4B | $0.04 | $0.08 | OSS |
| 19 |  Llama 3 8B Lunaris | $0.04 | $0.05 | OSS |
| 20 |  Nemotron Nano 9B V2 | $0.04 | $0.16 | OSS |
| 21 | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct | $0.04 | $0.10 | OSS |
| 22 |  Trinity Mini | $0.04 | $0.15 | OSS |
| 23 | GPT-5 Nano | $0.05 | $0.40 | Closed |
| 24 | Mistral Small 3 | $0.05 | $0.08 | OSS |
| 25 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | $0.05 | $0.20 | OSS |
| 26 |  Olmo 2 32B Instruct | $0.05 | $0.20 | OSS |
| 27 | Qwen3 8B | $0.05 | $0.40 | OSS |
| 28 | Qwen3.5-9B | $0.05 | $0.15 | OSS |
| 29 | Llama 3.2 3B Instruct | $0.05 | $0.34 | OSS |
| 30 |  GLM 4.7 Flash | $0.06 | $0.40 | OSS |
Top 3 best-value writing LLMs
gpt-oss-20b offers the strongest quality-to-price ratio for general writing tasks. At $0.03/M input, it is a safe default for drafting, rewriting, and summarization.
Mistral Nemo offers the strongest quality-to-price ratio for general writing tasks. At $0.02/M input, it is a safe default for drafting, rewriting, and summarization.
Qwen2.5 Coder 7B Instruct offers the strongest quality-to-price ratio for general writing tasks. At $0.03/M input, it is a safe default for drafting, rewriting, and summarization.
The price gap · cheapest vs most expensive
The premium on writing models is almost entirely brand voice and tone. The quality gap on factual accuracy, grammar, and structure is within noise for most real-world writing jobs.