▲ Every major model, one page — updated 2026-07-24
The best LLM in 2026: every major model compared.
Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, Llama, DeepSeek, Mistral, and Qwen — on price, context, and the benchmarks people actually cite.
Picking a model shouldn't require reading eleven vendor blogs and cross-checking three leaderboards. This page does that work, and it tells you plainly which numbers you can trust and which ones you can't.
▲ 01 — before a single number
How to read this page
Pulled directly from Anthropic's own published pricing and model documentation. Every Claude price and context window on this page is official.
Every non-Anthropic figure on this page — OpenAI, Google, xAI, Meta, DeepSeek, Mistral, Alibaba — came from secondary aggregator sites (leaderboard trackers, model-card summaries, blog posts), because no official first-party pricing page was fetched for any of them in this research pass. Treat these as directionally useful, not vendor-confirmed.
A small number of figures contradict each other across sources — Mistral Large 3's pricing is quoted two different ways with no way to reconcile them from this research. Shown as a range, flagged, never averaged into a single fake number.
Some category "winners" are measured on different benchmarks by different sources — the computer-use comparison mixes OSWorld and Online-Mind2Web scores, for instance. Marked directional-only, not a clean head-to-head.
Nothing the research couldn't pin down is guessed at here. Qwen's current flagship generation (3.6/3.7, which supersedes the Qwen 3.5 profiled below), DeepSeek R2/V5's actual status, and a scored long-form writing benchmark for any vendor were all gaps in this pass — they're named as gaps, not filled in.
▲ 02 — the price ladder
Output price, every tier, $/MTok
Sorted cheapest to most expensive. Gold bars are Anthropic's official pricing; teal bars are unverified aggregator figures for every other vendor.
▲ 03 — the benchmark matrix
Five numbers everyone cites
SWE-bench Verified (coding), GPQA Diamond (reasoning/science), Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (composite), context window, and output price. n/a means the figure wasn't surfaced in this research pass — not that the model doesn't report it.
| Model | SWE-bench Verified | GPQA Diamond | AA Index | Context | Output $/MTok | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 5 | 96.0 | n/a | n/a | 1,000,000 | $25 | Unverified — aggregator |
| Claude Fable 5 | 95.0 | n/a | ~60 | 1,000,000 | $50 | Unverified — aggregator |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | n/a | n/a | 61.4 | 1,000,000 | $25 | Unverified — aggregator |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | n/a | n/a | n/a | 1,000,000 | $15 | Official |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | n/a | 94.1–94.6 | ~55* | ~1,050,000 | $30 | Unverified — aggregator |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | 80.6 | 94.3 | n/a | 1,000,000 | $12–18 | Unverified — aggregator |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | n/a | n/a | n/a | 1,048,576 | $7.50 | Unverified — aggregator |
| Grok 4.5 | n/a | n/a | 54 | n/a | $6 | Unverified — aggregator |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro | 80.6 | n/a | n/a | 1,000,000 | $0.87 | Unverified — aggregator |
| Mistral Large 3 | n/a | n/a | 16.2 | 128,000 | $1.50–6* | Disputed sources |
| Qwen 3.5-397B-A17B | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | $3.60 | Unverified — aggregator |
| Llama 5 "Avocado" | n/a | n/a | n/a | 5,000,000* | open weights | Unverified — aggregator |
* Sources disagree on which model tops the AA Intelligence Index (GPT-5.6 Sol's ~55 is cited via GPT-5.5; Mistral Large 3's 16.2 and price range are both disputed across trackers.
Quality vs. price — the value frontier
Only models with both a reported SWE-bench Verified score and a price are plotted. Lower-left is cheap-and-weak; upper-left is the value frontier.
▲ 04 — the twelve categories
Winner, why it matters
01 · AGENTIC CODING
Unverified — aggregatorClaude Opus 5
96% SWE-bench Verified, the highest figure found across sources, at under half Fable 5's price.
02 · EVERYDAY CODING / IDE WORK
OfficialClaude Sonnet 5
Near-Opus coding quality at $2/$10 intro pricing through Aug 31, 2026 — the default autocomplete-and-agent pick.
03 · BEST VALUE (QUALITY PER DOLLAR)
Unverified — aggregatorDeepSeek V4 Pro
Matches a Google flagship's SWE-bench score at roughly 1/28th Opus 4.8's per-token output cost.
04 · LONG-CONTEXT / WHOLE-REPO WORK
Not directly comparableLlama 5 "Avocado"
Claimed 5M-token window — largest found, but unverified and marketing-heavy. Safer pick: the 1M-context Anthropic/Google tier.
05 · REASONING & MATH
Unverified — aggregatorGemini 3.1 Pro
GPQA Diamond 94.3% (claimed highest ever recorded) and the largest single reasoning-benchmark jump found (ARC-AGI-2: 31.1% → 77.1%).
06 · WRITING & LONG-FORM PROSE
Not directly comparableClaude Opus 4.8
No third-party writing benchmark exists for any vendor — this ranks on documented model-description language only, the weakest-evidenced category on this page.
07 · VISION & DOCUMENT UNDERSTANDING
Unverified — aggregatorGemini 3.1 Pro / 3.6 Flash
The only vendor confirmed to support native video and audio input across its full range, down to the cheapest tier.
08 · COMPUTER USE / BROWSER AUTOMATION
Not directly comparableGPT-5.4
Reported OSWorld leader at 75.0% — but this is measured on a different benchmark (OSWorld vs Online-Mind2Web) than the runner-up, so treat this ranking as directional only.
09 · BEST OPEN-WEIGHTS MODEL
Unverified — aggregatorDeepSeek V4 Pro-Max
Highest confirmed open-weights SWE-bench score (80.6%), corroborated across multiple sources with specific figures.
10 · CHEAP/FAST, HIGH-VOLUME WORK
Unverified — aggregatorDeepSeek V4 Flash
$0.14/$0.28 per MTok — the lowest verified price-per-token found, roughly 7x cheaper than Haiku 4.5.
11 · ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE WORK
OfficialClaude Opus 5 / Opus 4.8
The most concretely documented native spreadsheet/slide-generation capability (Agent Skills xlsx/pptx with real formulas) found across any vendor.
12 · MULTI-AGENT ORCHESTRATION
OfficialClaude Opus 5
The only vendor with a documented, first-class multi-agent coordinator API (up to 20 roster agents) rather than a prompted pattern.
Twelve winners. One decision left.
Knowing which model wins doesn't tell you what to build with it.
MentorMe turns the model you pick into a 90-day roadmap for your actual business — not a generic prompt library.
Build my free 90-day roadmap →Right model, wrong plan is still no plan.
— why this page ends with a roadmap, not just a leaderboard
▲ The model is a tool, not a strategy
▲ 05 — full model directory
Every model, by vendor
Anthropic
| Model | Price ($/MTok in/out) | Context | Open weights |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Fable 5 | $10 / $50 | 1M | No |
| Claude Opus 5 | $5 / $25 | 1M | No |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | $5 / $25 | 1M | No |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | $3 / $15 ($2/$10 intro) | 1M | No |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | $1 / $5 | 200K | No |
OpenAI
| Model | Price ($/MTok in/out) | Context | Open weights |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.6 Sol | ~$5 / $30 | ~1.05M | No |
| GPT-5.6 Terra | ~$2.50 / $15 | ~1.05M | No |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | ~$1 / $6 | ~1.05M | No |
| Model | Price ($/MTok in/out) | Context | Open weights |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | ~$2–4 / $12–18 | 1M | No |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | ~$1.50 / $7.50 | 1,048,576 | No |
xAI
| Model | Price ($/MTok in/out) | Context | Open weights |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grok 4.5 | ~$2 / $6 | n/a | No |
| Grok 4.3 / 4.20 | ~$1.25 / $2.50 | n/a | No |
| Grok 4.1 Fast | ~$0.20 / $0.50 | n/a | No |
Meta
| Model | Price ($/MTok in/out) | Context | Open weights |
|---|---|---|---|
| Llama 5 "Avocado" | open weights | 5M (claimed) | Yes |
DeepSeek
| Model | Price ($/MTok in/out) | Context | Open weights |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4 Pro / Pro-Max | ~$0.44 / $0.87 | 1M (claimed) | Yes |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | ~$0.14 / $0.28 | 1M (claimed) | Yes |
Mistral
| Model | Price ($/MTok in/out) | Context | Open weights |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mistral Large 3 | $0.50–2 / $1.50–6 (disputed) | 128K | Unconfirmed |
Alibaba
| Model | Price ($/MTok in/out) | Context | Open weights |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen 3.5-397B-A17B | ~$0.60 / $3.60 | n/a | Yes |
| Qwen 3.5 Plus | ~$0.40 / $2.40 | n/a | Yes |
| Qwen 3.5 Flash | ~$0.10 / $0.40 | n/a | Yes |
"*" marks a claimed figure treated with real skepticism in this page — Llama 5's 5M context and Mistral Large 3's disputed pricing chief among them.
▲ 06 — who should switch to what
Six user types, six moves
Solo dev (side projects, personal tools)
Claude Sonnet 5 at intro pricing ($2/$10) — near-Opus coding quality, cheap enough for daily iteration, intro rate runs through Aug 31, 2026.
Startup shipping product
Sonnet 5 for the core agent/coding path; DeepSeek V4 Pro for high-volume, low-stakes background tasks to cut inference spend roughly 10–20x.
Enterprise (spreadsheets, legal, finance)
Claude Opus 5 for documented native .xlsx/.pptx generation and the highest verified SWE-bench score; pair with Gemini 3.1 Pro for very long document ingestion.
Researcher (reasoning, math, science)
Gemini 3.1 Pro for GPQA Diamond and ARC-AGI-2 gains, with GPT-5.6 Sol as a near-tied cross-check — running both is cheap insurance given how close these two are.
High-volume API app (chatbots, pipelines)
DeepSeek V4 Flash ($0.14/$0.28) if you can tolerate less-proven SLA/support, or Claude Haiku 4.5 ($1/$5) for first-party reliability.
Non-technical daily user
Claude on Sonnet 5 or Opus 5 for writing and reasoning quality without needing to think about model IDs, or Gemini if you're already inside Google Workspace.
Six moves above. One of them is yours.
Read the deeper Anthropic model guides next.
This page ranks Opus 5 as the agentic-coding and multi-agent winner. See exactly how it and Fable 5 perform inside a real founder workflow.
▲ 07 — straight answers
What people are actually searching
What is the best LLM in 2026?
There is no single "best" model — it depends on the job. For agentic coding, Claude Opus 5 posts the highest reported SWE-bench Verified score found in this research (96%, unverified-secondary). For raw quality-per-dollar, DeepSeek V4 Pro matches a Google flagship's coding score at roughly 1/28th the output price. Pick by category, not by headline.
What is the best AI model for coding?
Claude Opus 5 for the hardest agentic work, Claude Sonnet 5 for everyday IDE/autocomplete use at a fraction of the price (intro pricing $2/$10 per MTok through Aug 31, 2026), and DeepSeek V4 Pro if cost per token is the deciding constraint. All non-Anthropic benchmark figures here are unverified-secondary — verify before making a purchasing decision on them alone.
What is the cheapest LLM with good performance?
DeepSeek V4 Flash is the lowest verified price found ($0.14 input / $0.28 output per MTok, unverified-secondary). Claude Haiku 4.5 ($1/$5, official Anthropic pricing) costs more but carries first-party SLA and support maturity that the cheaper open-weights options don't yet have a track record on.
Is Llama 5 really better than Claude and Gemini?
Treat that claim with real skepticism. Llama 5's "matches or exceeds GPT-5 and Gemini 2.0" language is vague, unsourced comparative marketing, not a scored benchmark run, and it references a stale 2026 comparison point (Gemini 2.0). No independent benchmark table for Llama 5 was found in this research. Its 5M-token context claim is the largest found anywhere, if it holds — but it hasn't been independently verified.
How reliable is the pricing on this page?
Anthropic's pricing and context windows are official, pulled from Anthropic's own documentation. Every other vendor's numbers came from secondary aggregator sites, not vendor pricing pages, and some contradict each other outright — Mistral Large 3 alone has two mutually exclusive price quotes in circulation. Confirm any non-Anthropic figure on the vendor's own pricing page before budgeting against it.
Founder —
Picking the right model is the easy part. Anyone can read a leaderboard. The hard part is knowing what to actually build with it — which workflow, which offer, which 90 days of moves turn a smarter model into more revenue.
That's the part a comparison page can't do for you. That's the part we do.
Pick your model. Then come build the plan.
— Italo
▲ The model is picked. The plan isn't.