AY Automate / Original Research
What the major AI models actually cost per token, as of July 2026.
Every price below was checked against the vendor's own pricing page today, 2026-07-23, not copied from a roundup or a cached summary. Prices change; the source link next to every row is where to check the current number, not this page.
$0.30
Cheapest input, per M tokens
$180
Most expensive output, per M tokens
3
Vendors, all live-verified
1
Model dropped, no published price
What this index is, and is not
Every vendor publishes today's price on its own pricing page. What none of them publish is the trend: what a model cost last quarter, or how a price change lands against everyone else's. This page starts as a single dated snapshot, checked live against each vendor's own page rather than aggregated from a roundup, with the intent to re-check it on a regular cadence and let the history accrue on this same URL.
It is not a benchmark of model quality, and it is not a claim about which model is cheapest for a given task; a model's real cost depends on how many tokens it needs to finish the work, not only its per-token rate (see the FAQ below). It is a dated, sourced record of what each vendor's own page says right now.
Price per million tokens, across models
Sorted by output price, the more expensive of the two figures for every model here. Bar length is log-scaled so the $0.30 and $180 rows both stay readable on one chart; the dollar labels are the real, linear prices.
Bars are log-scaled for legibility across a 600x price range; read the printed dollar figures, not relative bar length, for the actual ratio between two models.
Every price, with its source
| Model | Vendor | Input $/M | Output $/M | Note | Source, as of 2026-07-23 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.5 Pro | OpenAI | $30.00 | $180.00 | Flagship reasoning tier | developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing |
| Claude Fable 5 | Anthropic | $10.00 | $50.00 | Flagship tier | platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | OpenAI | $5.00 | $30.00 | Standard flagship | developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | Anthropic | $5.00 | $25.00 | Standard tier | platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing |
| GPT-5.6 Terra | OpenAI | $2.50 | $15.00 | Mid tier | developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | $2.00 | $12.00 | <=200k-token tier; rises to $4.00 / $18.00 past 200k | ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing | |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Anthropic | $2.00 | $10.00 | Intro price through Aug 31, 2026; rises to $3.00 / $15.00 after | platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | $1.50 | $7.50 | Mainstream tier | ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing | |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | OpenAI | $1.00 | $6.00 | Budget tier | developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Anthropic | $1.00 | $5.00 | Budget tier | platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | $0.30 | $2.50 | Budget tier | ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing |
One model was checked and dropped: Sakana Fugu has not published a per-token price as of 2026-07-23 (confirmed billing model is subscription plus usage-based, with per-request cost reporting instead of a fixed rate card). A wrong price here would be worse than no row, so it is not listed; see how Fugu billing actually works for what is confirmed.
Frequently asked questions
How current is this price index?
Every price on this page was checked against the vendor's own live pricing page on 2026-07-23, the date shown throughout. AI model prices change without much notice, sometimes with days of lead time, sometimes none, so treat this as a dated snapshot, not a live feed. Click through to the source link next to any row to see the vendor's current number.
Why is Sakana Fugu not on this list?
Because it does not have a published per-token price to verify. As of its June 2026 launch, Sakana has confirmed a billing model (subscription plus usage-based billing with per-request cost reporting) but not a specific input/output rate card. We would rather list one fewer model than publish a guessed number; see our separate breakdown of how Fugu billing actually works for what is and is not confirmed.
Why do input and output prices differ so much for the same model?
Generating a token (output) takes meaningfully more compute than reading one (input), so every vendor on this page prices output higher, typically 5x to 6x the input rate. The ratio is fairly consistent within a vendor's own model family; it is the absolute price level that varies by vendor and by model tier.
Is a cheaper per-token price always a cheaper task?
No. A more expensive model can still finish a task for less money if it uses meaningfully fewer tokens to reach a correct answer, and a cheaper model can cost more in practice if it needs several retries or a longer reasoning trace. Per-token price is one input to a real cost comparison, not the whole answer; our AI vs Human Employee Cost calculator models the actual task-level tradeoff.
Will this page track price changes over time?
That is the intent for future editions: re-check every row on a regular cadence and keep the historical prices attached to this same page so the trend becomes visible, not just the current snapshot. This first edition is a single dated snapshot; the time series does not exist yet.
Refreshed on a regular cadence
The next snapshot will report real change against this baseline, on this same page.
No new URL for the next check-in. The series stays comparable, and this edition's numbers stay attached to the same page once the next one lands.