AI pricing guides
AI model prices change fast. These guides keep the numbers straight and show you how to get the most intelligence per dollar. Always cross-check against the calculator, which pulls live pricing.
AI pricing report: Aug 11–24, 2026 — what changed and what it means
A fortnight in AI pricing: Gemini 3.7 Flash launches, DeepSeek V4 Pro goes GA, Grok 4.6 matches GPT-5.6 Sol's index at a fraction of the price, and GPT-5.6 Sol's price gets pinned. The movers, the numbers, and what to do about them.
AI subscription limits explained: weekly caps, resets and what they mean
Why does ChatGPT Pro run out in a day while Claude lasts the week? A plain-English guide to AI subscription usage limits and resets in 2026.
Best AI models for back-end development in 2026
Which AI models are best for back-end code, APIs and bug-fixing? GPT-5.6 Sol leads, with Grok 4.6 and Claude Opus 5 close behind. Full ranking and what it costs.
Best AI models for front-end design in 2026 (ranked)
Claude Opus 5 and Claude Fable 5.1 lead the pack for front-end design, with Kimi K3 close behind. Here's the full ranking of the best AI models for UI work in 2026 — and which ones to skip.
Best AI models for vibe coding in 2026 (one-shot ranking)
Claude Fable 5.1 is the one-shot king of vibe coding, with GPT-5.6 Sol and Claude Opus 5 close behind. Full tier list of the best AI models for vibe coding in 2026 and what each one costs.
Best AI subscription in 2026: which plan is actually worth it?
SuperGrok Heavy, Claude Max, ChatGPT Pro or Google AI Pro? We compare the leading AI subscriptions on price, usage limits and what you actually get for your money in 2026.
Why Claude Sonnet 5 burns so many tokens (and what it costs you)
Claude Sonnet 5 has one of the most token-hungry tokenizers among top models — second-highest token usage on Cursorbench. Here's what that means for your bill.
Fastest AI models in 2026: tokens per second compared
Gemini 3.7 Flash is the fastest AI model in 2026, topping 200 tokens per second. Here's how the fastest models rank on speed — and why speed is a bigger deal than most people think.
GPT-5.6 family explained: Sol vs Terra vs Luna in 2026
OpenAI's GPT-5.6 family has three tiers — Sol, Terra and Luna. Here's how they compare on price, intelligence and what each is actually good at in 2026.
Kimi K3: the best open-weight AI model in 2026?
Moonshot's Kimi K3 is the top open-weight model for coding — strong design, great game-dev skills and near-frontier intelligence. Here's what it costs and who should use it.
The open-weight frontier: DeepSeek vs GLM vs Qwen in 2026
DeepSeek V4, GLM-5.3 and Qwen 3.8 are the open-weight models to beat. Compared on price, design and serving speed.
Running AI locally in 2026: DeepSeek V4 Flash on your own hardware
DeepSeek V4 Flash is cheap enough to run on local hardware — practitioners have built entire websites for cents. Here's what local AI can do in 2026.
DeepSeek V4 Pro's GA: what the 0813 update changed
DeepSeek V4 Pro's 0813 GA release cut prices to $0.435 / $0.87 while raising its intelligence index from 45 to 53. What changed, and why it matters for your budget.
Gemini 3.7 Flash pricing: Google's new value play
Gemini 3.7 Flash costs $0.75 per 1M input and $3.75 per 1M output — priced the same as Gemini 3.6 Flash but higher on the intelligence index. Here's what changed and who should care.
The cheapest AI APIs in 2026, ranked by intelligence per dollar
A rundown of the cheapest AI APIs in 2026 — DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, GLM-5.3 Flash, Gemini 3.8 Flash, Step 5 Preview and more — ranked by how much intelligence each dollar actually buys.
How we measure intelligence per dollar
The exact formula behind the AI Intelligence Calculator's headline metric — how tokens per dollar and the intelligence index combine into a single value score, and its limits.
DeepSeek vs OpenAI: is DeepSeek really that much cheaper?
DeepSeek V4 Pro and V4.1 Flash vs GPT-5.6 Sol: a straight comparison of API prices, intelligence per dollar, and when the cheaper option actually makes sense.
Claude API pricing: what does Claude really cost in 2026?
Claude Fable 5.1, Opus 5, Sonnet 5 and Haiku 4.5 API pricing per million tokens, plus Claude Pro and Claude Max subscriptions — and how Claude compares to the competition on value.
How much does ChatGPT cost in 2026?
The complete 2026 breakdown of ChatGPT pricing: the free tier, ChatGPT Plus at $20/month, ChatGPT Pro at $200/month, and what the GPT-5.6 API actually costs per million tokens.