Fugu Max pricing in 2026
What one task costs on Fugu Max
Per-million-token prices are hard to feel, so here are typical token counts for common jobs priced with Fugu Max. Figures are USD at the rates above and exclude prompt caching and batch discounts.
| Task | Tokens (in / out) | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Code review of a 500-line pull request | 60,000 / 4,000 | $0.144 |
| Debug one failing test | 40,000 / 6,000 | $0.116 |
| Generate a landing page in one shot | 3,000 / 30,000 | $0.186 |
| Draft a 1,200-word article | 2,000 / 2,500 | $0.019 |
| Answer a question from a 20-page document | 25,000 / 800 | $0.055 |
| Multi-step agent run (10 tool calls) | 250,000 / 25,000 | $0.650 |
| All of the above, once | $1.17 |
Cheaper at the same or better capability: GLM-5.3 FlashX runs the same set of tasks for $0.226 instead of $1.17.
Fugu Max by Sakana AI costs $2 per 1M input tokens and $6 per 1M output tokens — about 200.0k tokens per $1. Prices last verified 2026-09-19.
The verdict
Sakana AI's Fugu is not a single model but a learned multi-agent orchestration system: a router model that assembles and coordinates a team of agents per request. At $2 / $6 per 1M tokens Fugu Max is the cost-performance tier. Artificial Analysis has not benchmarked it yet, so we cannot place it on the intelligence index — treat the rating here as a placeholder, not a measurement.
A concrete example: sending 100,000 input tokens and getting back 20,000 output tokens with Fugu Max costs about $0.32 at current prices.
Who is Fugu Max for?
Fugu Max is the cost-performance model in Sakana AI's Fugu family. Fugu takes an unusual approach: rather than one monolithic model, it is a language model trained to route a task across a learned team of agents, then synthesize the result. That makes it interesting for agentic workflows — research, multi-step tool use, orchestration-heavy tasks — where a single model would otherwise need careful prompting.
The honest caveat is measurement. Fugu is not on the Artificial Analysis leaderboard, so it has no Intelligence Index and no independently verified benchmark position; the intelligence-per-dollar figure shown on this page is based on a tier estimate, not a benchmark. It is listed here for completeness because users ask about it. Check its own benchmarks before committing production work to it.
Strengths & weaknesses
- Strength: Multi-agent orchestration as a single endpoint
- Best for: Agentic
- Weakness: Not yet benchmarked on Artificial Analysis, so it has no Intelligence Index (the score falls back to a tier estimate).
Fugu Max key facts
| Provider | Sakana pricing |
|---|---|
| Input price | $2 / 1M tokens |
| Output price | $6 / 1M tokens |
| Tokens / $1 | 200.0k |
| Intelligence / $1 | 160,000 |
| Context window | 1.0M tokens |
| Tier | balanced |
| Speed | Average |
| Released | 2026-09-11 |
| Last verified | 2026-09-19 |
What Fugu Max delivers for your budget
For a coding workload, here is roughly what each monthly budget buys:
| Budget | Tokens / month | Months of workload |
|---|---|---|
| $20 | 6.8M | 10.5x |
| $50 | 17.1M | 26.3x |
| $100 | 34.2M | 52.6x |
Other Sakana models
How Fugu Max compares to its closest rivals
Rather than repeating the full catalog on every page, here are the three current models nearest to Fugu Max on the intelligence index — and why you might still pick one instead:
- GLM-5.3 FlashX (GLM) — $0.37 input / $1.25 output per 1M tokens. Why you might pick it: GLM-5.3 quality at high throughput, with a first-party price.
- Fugu Ultra v2 (Sakana) — $5 input / $30 output per 1M tokens. Why you might pick it: Highest-capacity Fugu tier for hard multi-step tasks.
- GPT-6 Astra (ChatGPT) — $10 input / $50 output per 1M tokens. Why you might pick it: Frontier reasoning inside ChatGPT Plus and Pro.
Fugu Max — frequently asked questions
How much does Fugu Max cost?
Fugu Max by Sakana AI costs $2 per 1M input tokens and $6 per 1M output tokens.
How many tokens per dollar does Fugu Max give you?
On a typical 1:3 input-to-output mix, Fugu Max delivers around 200.0k tokens per dollar — an intelligence-per-dollar score of 160000.
What is Fugu Max's context window?
Fugu Max supports a context window of 1.0M tokens.
Is Fugu Max worth it in 2026?
Fugu Max is Sakana's balanced tier model. Use the AI Intelligence Calculator to see how its value compares to every other model at your budget.