ClawPaneLLM Cost Per Token Comparison: GPT-5 vs. Claude vs. Gemini vs. More
Token pricing determines your AI costs. A 10x difference in per-token price means a 10x difference in your bill for the same workload. Here's the definitive cost comparison for 2026.
Pricing by Tier (per 1M tokens — Input / Output)
Frontier Models (Highest Quality)
| Model | Provider | Input | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.2 | OpenAI | $1.75 | $14.00 |
| GPT-5 | OpenAI | $1.25 | $10.00 |
| Claude Opus 4.5 | Anthropic | $5.00 | $25.00 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Anthropic | $3.00 | $15.00 |
| Gemini 2.5 Pro | $1.25 | $10.00 | |
| Gemini 3 Pro Preview | ~$1.25 | ~$10.00 | |
| Grok 4 | xAI | ~$2.00 | ~$10.00 |
Mid-Tier Models (Great Quality, Moderate Cost)
| Model | Provider | Input | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5-mini | OpenAI | $0.30 | $1.25 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Anthropic | $1.00 | $5.00 |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | ~$0.15 | ~$0.60 | |
| o3-mini | OpenAI | ~$1.10 | ~$4.40 |
| Mistral Medium 3.1 | Mistral | ~$0.40 | ~$2.00 |
| Grok 3 | xAI | ~$0.30 | ~$1.50 |
Budget Models (Sufficient for Simple Tasks)
| Model | Provider | Input | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5-nano | OpenAI | $0.05 | $0.40 |
| Gemini 2.0 Flash | ~$0.10 | ~$0.40 | |
| DeepSeek V3.1 | DeepSeek | ~$0.15 | ~$0.60 |
| Mistral Small 3.2 | Mistral | ~$0.10 | ~$0.30 |
| Llama 4 Scout | Meta (hosted) | ~$0.10 | ~$0.20 |
| Qwen3 30B | Alibaba | ~$0.08 | ~$0.16 |
| Ministral 8B | Mistral | ~$0.05 | ~$0.10 |
Prices approximate as of February 2026. Check provider pages for current rates.
Effective Cost Per Request
Token pricing is abstract. Here's what typical requests actually cost:
Simple Request (200 input / 50 output tokens)
| Model | Cost | vs. Cheapest |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4.5 | $0.0023 | 38x |
| GPT-5 | $0.0008 | 13x |
| GPT-5-mini | $0.0001 | 2x |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | $0.00006 | 1x (baseline) |
| GPT-5-nano | $0.00003 | 0.5x |
Takeaway: Simple tasks cost 13–38x more on frontier models. A router that sends these to budget models saves 90%+ per request.
Medium Request (800 input / 400 output tokens)
| Model | Cost | vs. Cheapest |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Sonnet 4.5 | $0.0084 | 26x |
| GPT-5 | $0.0050 | 15x |
| GPT-5-mini | $0.0007 | 2.3x |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | $0.0004 | 1.2x |
| GPT-5-nano | $0.0002 | 1x |
Complex Request (2000 input / 1000 output tokens)
| Model | Cost | vs. Cheapest |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4.5 | $0.0350 | 44x |
| GPT-5 | $0.0125 | 16x |
| GPT-5-mini | $0.0019 | 2.4x |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | $0.0009 | 1.1x |
| GPT-5-nano | $0.0005 | 1x |
The Price-Quality Matrix
Cost isn't everything. Here's how to think about the tradeoffs:
Worth the Premium (Use GPT-5 / Claude Opus 4.5 / Gemini 2.5 Pro)
- Complex multi-step reasoning
- Creative writing that requires nuance
- Code generation for production systems (Codestral, GPT-5.2)
- Tasks where errors are expensive
Mid-Tier Sweet Spot (Use GPT-5-mini / Claude Haiku 4.5 / Gemini 2.5 Flash)
- Customer support conversations
- Content summarization
- Data extraction and structuring
- General Q&A
Budget Is Fine (Use GPT-5-nano / DeepSeek V3.1 / Mistral Small 3.2 / Llama 4 Scout)
- Classification and categorization
- Simple text formatting
- Template-based generation
- Sentiment analysis
- Routing/triage decisions
How to Stop Overpaying
The insight from this data is clear: most requests don't need frontier models. If 60–70% of your traffic is simple or medium complexity, you're overpaying by 10–25x on the majority of your requests.
A model router like ClawPane automates this decision. It knows the pricing across 40+ models from 15+ providers, evaluates each request, and picks the cheapest model that meets your quality threshold. You configure the weights once; the router optimizes every request.