Value-ranked with real ratings and real prices — because a cheap model that fails the task is the most expensive one.
Live data · updated 2026-10-30 10:03 · sources: LMArena + OpenRouter
GLM-5.3-Flash: arena-top-20 quality at $0.18/1M output — the best deal in AI right now.
| Model | Output $/1M | Arena rating | Value | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GLM-5.3-Flash | $0.18 | 1477 | ★★★★★ | MIT |
| MiMo-V2.6-Pro | $0.87 | 1480 | ★☆☆☆☆ | MIT |
| DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-20260910 (Max) | $1.2 | 1476 | ★☆☆☆☆ | MIT |
| MiMo-V2.5-Pro | $1.8 | 1467 | ★☆☆☆☆ | MIT |
| Grok 4.20 Beta (Reasoning, 0309) | $2.5 | 1472 | ★☆☆☆☆ | Proprietary |
| Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent Beta (0309) | $2.5 | 1471 | ★☆☆☆☆ | Proprietary |
| ERNIE 5.1 | $2.5353 | 1467 | ★☆☆☆☆ | Proprietary |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash (High) | $3.75 | 1496 | ★☆☆☆☆ | Proprietary |
| Gemini 3.7 Flash (High) | $3.75 | 1490 | ★☆☆☆☆ | Proprietary |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) | $3.75 | 1483 | ★☆☆☆☆ | Proprietary |
As of 2026-10-30 10:03, the #20 model on LMArena (Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, 1487) would have topped the board a year ago — and it costs $6 per million output tokens. The value tier now clears bars that frontier models set last year.
Long agentic runs, subtle instruction following and tool-call reliability still separate the top 5 from the pack. For interactive chat and batch transforms, value models are fine; for autonomous agents, measure failure cost before celebrating the price.