≤ 2 $
Best API LLMs under $2 per million output tokens
API-accessible models with an output price at or under $2 per million tokens, ranked by Elo. The real quality-to-cost ratio for high-volume pipelines — classification, extraction, summarisation — where price per token matters more than the last benchmark point.
| # | Model | Arena Elo | Output / M tokens | Hosting | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇨🇳Qwen3.7 Plus Alibaba | 1456 | $1.60/M | API | proprietary |
| 2 | 🇺🇸GPT-5.6 Luna OpenAI | 1453 | $1.20/M | EU option | proprietary |
| 3 | 🇺🇸GPT-6 Luna OpenAI | 1443 | $0.50/M | EU option | proprietary |
| 4 | 🇫🇷Mistral Large 3 Mistral AI | 1414 | $1.50/M | Self-hostable | apache-2.0 |
| 5 | 🇺🇸GPT-5 mini OpenAI | 1390 | $2.00/M | EU option | proprietary |
| 6 | 🇫🇷Codestral Mistral AI | 1240 | $0.90/M | Self-hostable | mistral-non-commercial |
| 7 | 🇫🇷Mistral Small 4 Mistral AI | — | $0.60/M | Self-hostable | apache-2.0 |
| 8 | 🌍Claude Haiku 5.5 Anthropic | — | $0.50/M | API | — |
Data verified on 19 October 2026Open in the comparator
Method
Deterministic ranking on comparator data: LMArena Elo (style control) first, HuggingFace downloads second for models without an Elo. Prices and licences are verified at the official source and dated. No model is ranked by an LLM.