getcheapaicredits

October 2026 · month to date

AI API Price Index

What language models cost through their APIs this month: typical price per million tokens by tier, price changes, new releases, and what a dollar of usage costs to buy. Built from live list prices and our daily snapshots (recorded since 2026-10-01).

Frontier (blended $5+ per 1M)

$11.25

median blended per 1M · 31 models

Cheapest: OpenAI GPT-5.4 $5.63

Mid-range ($1–5 per 1M)

$3

median blended per 1M · 77 models

Cheapest: Z.ai GLM 4.7 $1

Small and cheap (under $1 per 1M)

$0.365

median blended per 1M · 112 models

Cheapest: Mistral Mistral Nemo $0.022

Paid text models from 11 major labs, list price. Blended = (3 × input + output) / 4.

Price changes in October 2026

No list price changes recorded this month so far. We check every model daily; any increase or cut will be listed here.

New models released in October 2026

None so far this month.

What AI credits cost to buy

Live quotes for $100 of usage at list price.
#Where you buyYou pay
1
OrbioCardCheapest right now
$85.10
incl. $2.60 card processing
2
smaaartCard
$95.00
+ card processing and tax at checkout (not in this number)
3
Direct from the labCard
$100.00
no top-up fee
4
OpenRouterCrypto
$105.00
fees included
5
OpenRouterCard
$105.50
fees included

Disclosure: this site is run by the team behind smaaart, one of the options compared. Tables are ranked by price only, from live quotes and published fees, including when smaaart isn't first. How we compare

Use this data

Free to cite with a link. Current prices for every model as CSV: ai-price-index/data.csv.

Suggested citation: getcheapaicredits AI API Price Index, October 2026, https://www.getcheapaicredits.com/ai-price-index