AI Model API Pricing Compared: July 2026
A per-million-token pricing table for GPT-5.6, Claude Opus 5 and Fable 5, Gemini 3.6 Flash, Grok 4.5, Muse Spark 1.1 and Kimi K3 — updated July 28, 2026.
Per-million-token API prices for frontier and near-frontier models range from $4.25 to $50 on output as of July 28, 2026 — a more than 11x spread between Meta's Muse Spark 1.1 and Anthropic's Claude Fable 5. The table below tracks input, output and cache pricing for every major model this site has covered, so you can compare vendors without re-reading seven separate launch posts.
The full pricing table
All prices are official list rates, in US dollars per million tokens, current as of this update.
| Model | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta Muse Spark 1.1 | $1.25 | $4.25 | Cached input $0.15; OpenAI SDK-compatible |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | $0.30 | $2.50 | Google's fastest, cheapest tier |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | $1.00 | $6.00 | OpenAI's fast/cheap tier |
| Grok 4.5 (base) | $2.00 | $6.00 | Cursor-trained coding model |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | $1.50 | $7.50 | ~17% fewer output tokens than 3.5 Flash |
| Grok 4.5 (fast variant) | $4.00 | $18.00 | Lower latency, higher per-token cost |
| GPT-5.6 Terra | $2.50 | $15.00 | Targets GPT-5.5 performance at ~half price |
| Kimi K3 | $3.00 ($0.30 cached) | $15.00 | 2.8T-parameter open-weight MoE |
| Claude Opus 5 | $5.00 | $25.00 | Same price as Opus 4.8; fast mode is 2x |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | $5.00 | $30.00 | Flagship tier, optional Ultra reasoning mode |
| Claude Fable 5 | $10.00 | $50.00 | Anthropic's most capable model |
Two models don't fit a single row because they ship multiple tiers at launch: GPT-5.6 (Sol/Terra/Luna) and Gemini 3.6 Flash (alongside Flash-Lite and the government-only Flash Cyber). Grok 4.5 also has a base and a faster, pricier variant.
Reading the table correctly
A per-token price only tells part of the story. Three factors change the real bill:
- Tokens per task, not tokens per dollar. Google reports that Gemini 3.6 Flash needs roughly 17% fewer output tokens than Gemini 3.5 Flash to complete the same multi-step, agentic task — stacking with the 17% price cut for a real-world cost drop closer to 30%. A cheaper sticker price with a chattier model can lose to a pricier model that finishes in fewer tokens.
- Cache pricing is not standardized. OpenAI's GPT-5.6 family introduced a cache-write fee (1.25x the uncached input rate) that didn't exist under GPT-5.5 — caching a prompt you reuse only once can now cost more than not caching it. Moonshot AI prices Kimi K3's cached input at $0.30 per million against $3.00 uncached, and Anthropic discounts Claude Fable 5 cache reads to roughly $1 per million.
- Reasoning/effort settings shift output volume. Models with an adjustable
effort or reasoning-depth parameter (GPT-5.6 Sol's Ultra mode, Meta's Muse
Spark 1.1
reasoningEffort) bill "thinking" tokens at the standard output rate, so a high-effort setting can multiply the effective cost per request well beyond the base per-token price.
Which model fits which budget
- High-volume, latency-sensitive steps (classification, short summarization, routing): Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or GPT-5.6 Luna, both under $6.50 blended per million tokens.
- General-purpose agent driver: GPT-5.6 Terra or Gemini 3.6 Flash — priced to target prior-generation flagship performance at roughly half the cost.
- Hard coding and long agentic sessions: Claude Opus 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol, both under $30 output, before reaching for Claude Fable 5 specifically for the hardest, longest-running tasks it's positioned for.
- Cost-conscious teams comfortable self-hosting: Kimi K3's open weights (Modified MIT license) trade a heavier serving setup for a per-token price well below the proprietary flagships, and Meta's Muse Spark 1.1 undercuts every proprietary model on this list via its hosted API.
If you're deciding between tiers inside one vendor's lineup rather than across vendors, see this site's guides on choosing a GPT-5.6 tier and migrating to Claude Opus 5 for task-by-task breakdowns.
What changes next
This table will be updated as vendors ship new models or repricing. The API rates above are per-token list prices — subscription plans can bundle or cap access differently, as Anthropic did when it moved Claude Fable 5 to a 50%-of-weekly-limit allowance inside Max and Team Premium plans (see this site's Fable 5 plan changes guide for the plan-by-plan math). Google has also teased a Gemini 4 release without a confirmed price yet, which would likely reshuffle this table again.
Frequently asked questions
Which frontier model API is cheapest per million tokens right now?
On output price, Meta's Muse Spark 1.1 is cheapest at $4.25 per million tokens, followed by Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite at $2.50. On a blended cost-per-task basis the answer can differ, since models use different numbers of tokens to finish the same job.
Which model API is the most expensive?
Claude Fable 5 is the most expensive of the models compared here, at $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens, versus $30 output for OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol and $25 output for Claude Opus 5.
Is a lower per-token price always a lower total cost?
No. Google reports Gemini 3.6 Flash needs about 17% fewer output tokens than Gemini 3.5 Flash for the same multi-step task, turning a 17% price cut into a roughly 30% real-world cost cut. Always test token counts on your own workload before comparing sticker prices alone.
Does prompt caching change these prices?
Yes, and the rules differ by vendor. GPT-5.6 charges 1.25x the input rate to write to cache (a new fee starting with this family), Kimi K3 charges $0.30 per million for cached input versus $3.00 uncached, and Claude Fable 5 discounts cache reads to roughly $1 per million. Check each vendor's docs before assuming a flat 90% cache discount.