AI Coding & Dev2026-10-153 min read

Cheapest Way to Use Frontier AI in October 2026: API Prices Compared

Every new model's official API price in one table, cached-input discounts, and when a subscription or a short token pack beats paying per token.

Prices below are the vendors' standard API rates per million tokens at launch. They are what you pay with your own API key; subscriptions and gateway packs are priced differently.

Model	Input	Output	Cached input
GPT-6 Luna	$0.10	$0.50	$0.01
Claude Haiku 5.5 (prompts up to 100k)	$0.10	$0.50	$0.01
GPT-6.1 Sol	$2	$10	$0.10
Claude Sonnet 5.5	$2	$10	$0.10
Gemini 4 Argon (introductory)	$2	$10	95% off input
Claude Opus 5.5	$4	$20	$0.20
GPT-6 Astra	$10	$50	$1.00

Three ways to spend less

Cache your context. Agents resend the same files and instructions every turn. Cached input is 90-95% cheaper on every model above, so tools that cache well cost far less.
Route by difficulty. Let Luna or Haiku do the reading and sorting, and send only the hard step to Sol, Sonnet or Opus.
Match the payment to the pattern. A burst of heavy work suits a short pack; steady daily use suits a monthly plan.

Short packs and credit on PerkShelf

Claude: 10M tokens for a day ($2.99), 50M for two days, 100M for three days, or $100 and $500 of credit for 30 days.
Codex: 10M, 50M and 100M token packs.

These run through a third-party gateway rather than your own vendor key, and the models each serves are listed on your order. How the packs work.

Frequently asked questions

Which frontier model is cheapest?

GPT-6 Luna and Claude Haiku 5.5 tie at $0.10 in and $0.50 out per million tokens for normal prompt sizes.

Is a subscription cheaper than the API?

For steady interactive use, usually yes. For automated agents running all day, pay per token and cache aggressively.

89% vs listed retail

Claude API, $500 Credit (30 Days)

$54.99$500.00/ 30 Days

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