AI API Pricing 2026: GPT-5.3 Codex, Gemini 3.1, Claude 4.6 — Full Price Table (Feb 26 Update)
Feb 26 updated — GPT-5.3 Codex $2/M, Gemini 3.1 Pro $1.25/M, Claude Opus 4.6 $5/M, DeepSeek V3.2 $0.27/M. Complete pricing for 40+ AI models with monthly cost calculator.
The AI model landscape is evolving at breakneck speed in 2026. Just this month, three major new models dropped: Google’s Gemini 3.1 Pro (77.1% ARC-AGI-2), OpenAI’s GPT-5.3 Codex (25% faster agentic coding), and Anthropic’s Claude 4.6 family (80.8% SWE-bench). Seven major providers are competing on price, performance, and specialization — and the pricing gaps between them are wider than ever.
Whether you are building a production chatbot, a code assistant, or an agentic workflow, choosing the right model at the right price point can make or break your unit economics.
This guide breaks down the current pricing for every major AI API, helps you estimate monthly costs, and shows you where to save money without sacrificing quality.
The 2026 AI Provider Landscape
Seven providers dominate the API market in February 2026:
- OpenAI remains the largest player. Their newest release, GPT-5.3 Codex ($2/$10 per 1M), is purpose-built for agentic coding — 25% faster than GPT-5.2. They also offer GPT-5 (flagship), GPT-4.1, GPT-4o, and the reasoning-focused o3 series.
- Anthropic just launched the Claude 4.6 family this month. Opus 4.6 ($5/$25) hits 80.8% SWE-bench and 128K max output. Sonnet 4.6 ($3/$15) is the new best-value flagship. The Claude 4.5 lineup remains available.
- Google released Gemini 3.1 Pro ($1.25/$10) scoring 77.1% ARC-AGI-2 with native video understanding. Gemini 2.5 Pro and Flash continue as strong mid-range and budget options with 1M context.
- xAI entered the API market with Grok 3, targeting developers who want strong reasoning at mid-tier pricing.
- Meta keeps Llama open-source, but hosted Llama 3.3 70B is available through third-party API providers at rock-bottom prices.
- DeepSeek continues to disrupt with R1 and V3.2 — Chinese-developed models offering strong performance at a fraction of Western model costs. DeepSeek V4 (1T params, open-weight) is the latest addition.
- Mistral holds its niche in Europe with Large 3 for complex tasks and Small 3.1 as one of the cheapest capable models on the market.
Full Pricing Table (Per 1M Tokens)
Here is the complete pricing breakdown as of February 2026. All prices are in USD per 1 million tokens.
Flagship / High-Capability Models
| Model | Provider | Input (per 1M) | Output (per 1M) | Context Window | NEW |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4.6 | Anthropic | $5.00 | $25.00 | 200K | Feb 2026 |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | $1.25 | $10.00 | 1M | Feb 2026 | |
| Claude Opus 4.5 | Anthropic | $5.00 | $25.00 | 200K | |
| GPT-5 | OpenAI | $1.25 | $10.00 | 400K | |
| Gemini 2.5 Pro | $1.25 | $10.00 | 1M | ||
| Grok 3 | xAI | $3.00 | $15.00 | 128K | |
| o3 | OpenAI | $2.00 | $8.00 | 200K |
Mid-Tier / Best Value Models
| Model | Provider | Input (per 1M) | Output (per 1M) | Context Window | NEW |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Anthropic | $3.00 | $15.00 | 200K | Feb 2026 |
| GPT-5.3 Codex | OpenAI | $2.00 | $10.00 | 200K | Feb 2026 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Anthropic | $3.00 | $15.00 | 200K | |
| GPT-4.1 | OpenAI | $2.00 | $8.00 | 1M | |
| GPT-4o | OpenAI | $2.50 | $10.00 | 128K | |
| Mistral Large 3 | Mistral | $2.00 | $6.00 | 128K | |
| DeepSeek R1 | DeepSeek | $0.55 | $2.19 | 128K |
Budget / High-Throughput Models
| Model | Provider | Input (per 1M) | Output (per 1M) | Context Window |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Anthropic | $1.00 | $5.00 | 200K |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | $0.15 | $0.60 | 1M | |
| DeepSeek V3.2 | DeepSeek | $0.27 | $1.10 | 128K |
| Llama 3.3 70B | Meta (hosted) | $0.88 | $0.88 | 128K |
| Mistral Small 3.1 | Mistral | $0.20 | $0.60 | 128K |
Use our AI Model Pricing Calculator to run custom comparisons with your own usage patterns.
Best Model for Your Budget
Enterprise ($5,000+/month API spend)
At enterprise scale, you want maximum capability and reliability. GPT-5 and Claude Opus 4.5 are the top choices for complex reasoning, long-form content, and agentic workflows. Gemini 2.5 Pro is worth considering if you need massive context windows (up to 1M tokens) at a lower per-token cost.
Recommended stack: Claude Opus 4.5 or GPT-5 for complex tasks, route simpler requests to Sonnet/GPT-4.1 to control costs.
Startup ($500-$5,000/month)
This is where model routing matters most. Claude Sonnet 4.5 and GPT-4.1 deliver near-flagship quality at 5-10x lower cost. Pair them with Claude Haiku 4.5 or Gemini 2.5 Flash for classification, summarization, and other high-volume tasks.
For a detailed head-to-head, see our OpenAI vs Anthropic comparison.
Hobby / Side Projects (Under $500/month)
Maximize every dollar. DeepSeek V3.2 at $0.27/$1.10 and Mistral Small 3.1 at $0.20/$0.60 are very cheap for their capability level. Gemini 2.5 Flash is another strong option at just $0.15/$0.60, especially if you need long-context processing on a budget.
For open-source enthusiasts, Llama 3.3 70B via hosted APIs offers flat pricing at $0.88 per million tokens for both input and output — a great option if your workload is output-heavy.
Check out our DeepSeek vs ChatGPT comparison for a deeper look at the cost-performance tradeoff.
Monthly Cost Estimates
To put these prices in perspective, here are estimated monthly costs for three common workloads. Each assumes a 1:1 input-to-output token ratio.
Light Usage (1M input + 1M output tokens/month)
| Model | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | $0.75 |
| Mistral Small 3.1 | $0.80 |
| DeepSeek V3.2 | $1.37 |
| Llama 3.3 70B | $1.76 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | $6.00 |
| GPT-5 | $11.25 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.5 | $18.00 |
Moderate Usage (50M input + 50M output tokens/month)
| Model | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | $38 |
| Mistral Small 3.1 | $40 |
| DeepSeek V3.2 | $69 |
| Llama 3.3 70B | $88 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | $300 |
| GPT-5 | $563 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.5 | $900 |
Heavy Usage (500M input + 500M output tokens/month)
| Model | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | $375 |
| Mistral Small 3.1 | $400 |
| DeepSeek V3.2 | $685 |
| Llama 3.3 70B | $880 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | $3,000 |
| GPT-5 | $5,625 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.5 | $9,000 |
Want exact numbers for your workload? Use the AI Token Counter to measure your actual prompt sizes, then plug them into the Pricing Calculator.
Hidden Costs to Watch
Raw per-token pricing does not tell the whole story. Keep these factors in mind:
Rate limits. Most providers impose requests-per-minute (RPM) and tokens-per-minute (TPM) limits on lower tiers. OpenAI and Anthropic both require usage history or prepayment to unlock higher rate limits. If your app needs burst capacity, budget for a higher tier or prepaid credits.
Cached input pricing. Anthropic offers prompt caching for Claude, where repeated system prompts are charged at a reduced rate after the first call. OpenAI has a similar cached input price for GPT-4.1 and GPT-5. If your system prompt is long and reused across requests, caching can cut input costs by 50-90%.
Batch API discounts. OpenAI’s Batch API offers 50% off for non-real-time workloads (24-hour turnaround). Anthropic’s Message Batches API provides similar discounts. If your use case allows asynchronous processing — think data labeling, content generation, or bulk analysis — always use batch endpoints.
Reasoning tokens. Models like o3 consume internal “thinking” tokens that you pay for but never see in the output. A single o3 request might use 5-10x more tokens than the visible output suggests. Monitor your actual token usage carefully with reasoning models.
Minimum spend / commitments. Some enterprise plans require monthly minimums. Google’s Gemini API has different pricing tiers depending on whether you use the free tier, pay-as-you-go, or provisioned throughput.
6 Ways to Reduce Your AI API Costs
-
Route by complexity. Not every request needs your most expensive model. Use a classifier (even a regex or keyword check) to send simple queries to Haiku/Flash/Small and only escalate complex ones to Opus/GPT-5.
-
Cache aggressively. If you send the same system prompt with every request, enable prompt caching. For Anthropic, cached prompts cost 90% less on subsequent calls. For application-level caching, store responses for identical or near-identical queries.
-
Use batch APIs for async work. Any task that does not need a real-time response — content moderation queues, document processing, weekly reports — should run through batch endpoints at half price.
-
Optimize your prompts. Shorter prompts cost less. Remove redundant instructions, compress examples, and use structured formats. A well-engineered prompt can be 30-50% shorter than a first draft while producing better results. Our AI Token Counter helps you measure exactly how many tokens each prompt version uses.
-
Fine-tune for repetitive tasks. If you are making thousands of similar API calls, a fine-tuned smaller model often outperforms a general-purpose large model at a fraction of the cost. OpenAI and Mistral both offer fine-tuning APIs.
-
Monitor and set budgets. All major providers offer usage dashboards and spending alerts. Set hard monthly limits to avoid surprise bills, especially during development and testing phases.
The Bottom Line
The 2026 AI API market offers more options at more price points than ever before. The pricing spread is enormous: from $0.15/1M input tokens (Gemini 2.5 Flash) to $5.00/1M (Claude Opus 4.5) — a 33x difference. The key to managing costs is not picking one model, but building a routing strategy that matches model capability to task complexity.
Start with the AI Model Pricing Calculator to model your specific use case, and revisit your model choices quarterly as pricing continues to evolve.
New model deep dives:
- Gemini 3.1 Pro Pricing Guide — $1.25/M, 77.1% ARC-AGI-2, native video, 1M context
- GPT-5.3 Codex Pricing Guide — $2/M, agentic coding, 200K context, 32K output
Provider deep dives:
- DeepSeek API Pricing 2026 — V3.2 at $0.27/M, with code examples and migration guide
- Claude API Pricing 2026 — Opus vs Sonnet vs Haiku, prompt caching savings
- OpenAI API Pricing Guide 2026 — GPT-5 at $1.25/M, GPT-4.1, o3, batch API discounts
- Google Gemini API Pricing Guide 2026 — Gemini 2.5 Pro at $1.25/M, Flash at $0.15/M, free tier details
- Grok API Pricing Guide 2026 — Grok 3 at $3/M, Mini at $0.30/M, $25 free credits
- Mistral API Pricing Guide 2026 — Large 3 at $2/M, Small 3.1 at $0.20/M, EU GDPR compliant
- How to Cut AI API Costs by 80% — 8 proven strategies with code examples
- Self-Hosting LLMs vs API: Cost Breakdown — GPU costs vs API costs, breakeven analysis
- AI API Rate Limits Comparison — throughput limits by provider