Official LLM API prices as a trackable index: US vs Chinese price trends, the cheapest model at a given benchmark score, and GPU rental prices. Updated daily; data downloadable.
Data updated: 2026-10-06Chinese models114.630-day -0.9% · median $1.54 · 26 modelsUS models98.730-day +0.0% · median $4.00 · 39 modelsAll models104.930-day -0.4% · median $2.00 · 66 models
Chinese modelsUS modelsAll models
Base 2026-07-13 = 100 · updated 2026-10-06 · The median US model costs 2.6× the median Chinese model.
MethodologyChain-linked geometric mean · base 2026-07-13 = 100
Data is a daily snapshot of each model’s official API list price; the price used is the blended price = (3 × input + 1 × output) / 4, in USD per 1M tokens. The index is a chain-linked geometric mean: each day it takes only models listed on both that day and the previous one, computes the geometric mean of their price ratios and multiplies it onto the previous day’s index, so adding or retiring models never moves it; only price changes of listed models do. USD is the stable basis (a model quoted in CNY keeps a constant USD figure at the daily rate). A falling index means the same thing got cheaper; it says nothing about quality. For quality, see the cost-vs-benchmark section below.
COST VS QUALITY
Cost vs. quality: who is cheapest at a given scoreGreen dots are the frontier: no cheaper model scores higher; grey dots are the rest
Cheapest model reaching a score level (AA Intelligence Index)
At least 95% of the top score: Claude Sonnet 5.5 · $4.00
At least 90% of the top score: Claude Sonnet 5.5 · $4.00
At least 80% of the top score: Muse Spark 1.3 · $2.00
At least 70% of the top score: GLM-5.3-Flash · $0.24
At least 60% of the top score: MiMo-V2.6-Flash · $0.17
Price-score frontier · AA Intelligence Index
Model
Blended / 1M tokens
AA Intelligence Index
% of top score
Solar Pro 4Upstage
$0.16
28.0
48%
MiMo-V2.6-FlashXiaomi
$0.17
38.0
66%
GLM-5.3-FlashZhipu AI
$0.24
42.0
72%
MiMo-V2.6-ProXiaomi
$0.54
46.0
79%
Muse Spark 1.3Meta
$2.00
48.0
83%
Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic
$4.00
56.0
97%
Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic
$8.00
58.0
100%
Price-score frontier · LiveBench
Model
Blended / 1M tokens
LiveBench
% of top score
GPT-6 LunaOpenAI
$0.20
72.0
86%
GPT-5.6 LunaOpenAI
$0.45
73.6
88%
DeepSeek V4.1 FlashDeepSeek
$0.53
81.1
97%
Muse Spark 1.3Meta
$2.00
81.6
98%
GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI
$4.00
81.6
98%
Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic
$8.00
83.2
100%
Claude Fable 5.1Anthropic
$20.00
83.4
100%
GPU RENTAL
GPU cloud rentalPer hour, per GPU
GPU
Hourly rate
Samples
As of
B300 288GB288 GB
$9.94
1
2026-10-05
B200 180GB180 GB
$6.25–$9.38
5
2026-10-06
H200 141GB141 GB
$4.21–$5.12
4
2026-10-06
H100 SXM5 80GB80 GB
$1.79–$4.00
5
2026-10-06
L40S 48GB48 GB
$0.60–$0.82
13
2026-10-06
RTX 5090D 24GB24 GB
$0.43–$0.54
30
2026-10-06
RTX 4090D 24GB24 GB
$0.31–$0.43
30
2026-10-06
Prices come from the public vast.ai market API (international cloud GPUs); they do not represent China-market purchases or domestic cloud prices. Daily snapshots began 2026-10-06; a GPU rental index appears here once 3+ days are stored.
DATA
Download and cite
/data/history.csv · daily official list-price snapshots (all models)