logoLLM Model Comparison Cost Calculator 2026

Compare real costs for 15+ AI models side by side. Pick a use-case preset or enter your own token counts.

Select a use case
Or enter custom values
Tokens in your prompt (1,000 ≈ 750 words)
Tokens in the model's response
Number of API calls per day
700 tokens / request
21.0M tokens / month
Prices as of April 2026 · 1 USD = 1.55 AUD
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Enter tokens above to compare costs across all models instantly.

How the LLM Cost Calculator Works

LLM APIs charge per token — roughly 4 characters of English text equals 1 token. Every request has two costs: input tokens (your prompt) and output tokens (the model's response). Output tokens typically cost 3–10× more than input tokens, so longer responses drive the biggest cost difference.

Select a use-case preset or enter your own token counts and daily request volume. The calculator multiplies your usage across every model's published April 2026 pricing and ranks them cheapest first. All results are shown in AUD at a rate of 1 USD = 1.55 AUD.

Which LLM Model Is Cheapest for Your Use Case in 2026?

Choosing the right AI model is as much a cost decision as a quality decision. In 2026, the gap between the cheapest and most expensive LLMs is enormous — a typical customer support chatbot sending 1,000 short messages per day costs under $2 AUD/month with Gemini 1.5 Flash, but over $1,700 AUD/month with Claude Opus 4. That's a 850× price difference for roughly comparable quality on simple tasks.

The most important variable is your output token count. Output tokens cost 3–10× more than input tokens across every provider. If your use case generates long responses — detailed code reviews, legal analysis, long-form writing — the premium models become proportionally more expensive. For short responses (chatbot replies, classification, summarisation) the budget models like GPT-4o Mini and Gemini 2.0 Flash offer 90%+ of the quality at a fraction of the cost.

The second key variable is volume. At 100 requests per day, even Claude Opus 4 costs under $170 AUD/month — manageable for many teams. At 100,000 requests per day, the cheapest model (Llama 3.1 8B at ~$0.06 AUD/M tokens) costs around $62 AUD/month while Claude Opus 4 hits $165,000 AUD/month. Volume changes everything, which is why this calculator shows monthly projections alongside per-request costs.

For Australian businesses, all LLM APIs are billed in USD. At the current rate of approximately 1.55 AUD per USD, it pays to compare carefully. Our ChatGPT Cost Calculator lets you model your specific ChatGPT usage in more detail, while the AI Token Counter helps you estimate your actual token counts from real prompt examples.

The practical recommendation for most teams: start with GPT-4o Mini or Gemini 2.0 Flash for any task that doesn't require complex reasoning. Upgrade to Claude Sonnet 4 or GPT-4o only where quality testing shows a measurable improvement. Reserve Claude Opus 4 and GPT-4 Turbo for your hardest tasks — legal analysis, complex code generation, and high-stakes content where the quality premium is worth paying. Use this comparison tool to model the actual dollar difference before committing to an architecture.

Frequently Asked Questions

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