AI Model Comparison 2026: pricing, context windows and benchmarks

Every pricing move we've verified against official provider pages — launches, cuts and promos, per 1M tokens.

1. verified
   9 Sept 2026VerifiedAll 22 listed modelsAll providers

   Full verification pass: re-checked every price against the official OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, SpaceXAI (xAI) and DeepSeek pricing pages. Added GPT-6 Astra, Claude Opus 5, Claude Fable 5.1, Grok 4.6 (all newer versions replacing prior rows); repriced GPT-5.6 Sol/Terra/Luna and DeepSeek V4 Pro/Flash; Claude Sonnet 5 intro pricing made permanent.

2. trending_down
   9 Sept 2026Price changeClaude Sonnet 5Anthropic

   $3 / $15 → $2 in / $10 out

   Anthropic's official pricing page confirms the scheduled Sep 1, 2026 increase to $3/$15 "will not occur" — the $2/$10 introductory rate is now the permanent standard price. Exact date Anthropic decided this is not published; this entry is dated to when the site was corrected.

3. trending_down
   9 Sept 2026Price changeGPT-5.6 SolOpenAI

   $5 / $30 → $4 in / $20 out

   Exact change date not found — confirmed different from July launch price via official OpenAI pricing page on this date. $4/$20 is described there as promotional, in effect through at least Nov 21, 2026.

4. trending_down
   9 Sept 2026Price changeGPT-5.6 TerraOpenAI

   $2.5 / $15 → $2 in / $12 out

   Exact change date not found — confirmed different from July launch price via official OpenAI pricing page on this date.

5. trending_down
   9 Sept 2026Price changeGPT-5.6 LunaOpenAI

   $1 / $6 → $0.2 in / $1.2 out

   Exact change date not found — confirmed different from July launch price via official OpenAI pricing page on this date.

6. rocket_launch
   3 Sept 2026LaunchGPT-6 AstraOpenAI

   $10 in / $50 out

   New top-of-lineup flagship, launched Sep 3, 2026 — 1.05M context, computer use, OpenAI's largest training run to date.

7. rocket_launch
   1 Sept 2026LaunchClaude Fable 5.1Anthropic

   $10 in / $50 out

   Replaces Claude Fable 5 in the leaderboard — same $10/$50 list price, cheaper prompt-cache-hit rate (0.025x vs 0.1x base input).

8. trending_down
   16 Aug 2026Price changeDeepSeek V4 ProDeepSeek

   $0.43 / $0.87 → $0.66 in / $1.98 out

   DeepSeek moved to a peak/off-peak pricing structure (peak 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC weekdays, 2x off-peak rate). Price shown is the off-peak, cache-miss standard rate; peak rate is $1.32/$3.96.

9. trending_down
   16 Aug 2026Price changeDeepSeek V4 FlashDeepSeek

   $0.14 / $0.28 → $0.22 in / $0.66 out

   Same peak/off-peak restructure as V4 Pro. Price shown is the off-peak, cache-miss standard rate; peak rate is $0.44/$1.32.

10. rocket_launch
    12 Aug 2026LaunchGrok 4.6SpaceXAI

    $2 in / $6 out

    Replaces Grok 4.5 in the leaderboard — same $2/$6 price and 500K context, adds an "xhigh" reasoning effort level.

11. rocket_launch
    24 Jul 2026LaunchClaude Opus 5Anthropic

    $5 in / $25 out

    Replaces Claude Opus 4.8 in the leaderboard — same $5/$25 price, 96% SWE-bench Verified.

12. verified
    19 Jul 2026VerifiedAll 19 listed modelsAll providers

    Full verification pass: every price on this site re-checked against the official OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, SpaceXAI, DeepSeek, Alibaba and Meta pricing pages.

13. rocket_launch
    8 Jul 2026LaunchGrok 4.5SpaceXAI

    $2 in / $6 out

    Launched at $2/$6 — first release under the SpaceXAI name after the SpaceX-xAI merger.

14. rocket_launch
    1 Jul 2026LaunchGPT-5.6 SolOpenAI

    $5 in / $30 out

    GPT-5.6 family flagship reasoning model, 1M context, priced level with GPT-5.5.

15. rocket_launch
    1 Jul 2026LaunchGPT-5.6 TerraOpenAI

    $2.5 in / $15 out

    Mid-tier of the GPT-5.6 family at half of Sol’s price.

16. rocket_launch
    1 Jul 2026LaunchGPT-5.6 LunaOpenAI

    $1 in / $6 out

    Fast tier of the GPT-5.6 family.

17. sell
    30 Jun 2026PromoClaude Sonnet 5Anthropic

    $3 / $15 → $2 in / $10 out

    Intro pricing: API usage billed at $2/$10 through Aug 31, 2026; list price stays $3/$15.

18. rocket_launch
    30 Jun 2026LaunchClaude Sonnet 5Anthropic

    $3 in / $15 out

    Launched at the same $3/$15 list price as Sonnet 4.6, now with a 1M-token context window.