Is Muse Spark 1.3 a good deal?

Whether anything in this catalogue beats Muse Spark 1.3 on both quality and price, and what you give up if it does. A computation on the current catalogue, not an opinion.

6 undominated of 137 · Sep 19, 2026

As of Sep 19, 2026, Gemini 3.8 Flash scores higher and costs less than Muse Spark 1.3 for Balanced on LMArena, but it is not a drop-in. You would give up: max output.

Current model

Muse Spark 1.3

Balanced

3 tokens in per 1 out

Muse Spark 1.31489.7 · $2.00/MLMArena EloEffective $/M · Balanced
137 rated, priced standard models. Chartreuse is the frontier. Cobalt is the model you named, when it is not on the staircase.

Gemini 3.8 Flash scores 5.0 points higher and costs 25% less, but you would give up: max output.

Muse Spark 1.3

LMArena Elo

1489.7

Effective $/M · Balanced

$2.00/M

Gemini 3.8 Flash

LMArena Elo

1494.7

Effective $/M · Balanced

$1.50/M

Muse Spark 1.3 takes text, image, video, file, audio, returns up to 943,718 tokens from a 1,048,576-token context, and is listed by 1 seller.

Compared against 137 rated, priced models on this lens: nothing dominates it outright, 2 more dominate it but give something up. Muse Spark 1.3 scores 1489.7 at $2.00 per million tokens for this mix.

Higher score, lower price, named losses

Not a drop-in. The loss is why these are not a recommendation.

ModelLMArenaEffective $/MYou give up
Gemini 3.8 Flash1494.7$1.50/Mmax output
Gemini 3.7 Flash1490.5$1.50/Mmax output

Open the frontier

This page does not mail you. The URL is the watch: same model, same mix, current catalogue.

Saved decision references

Save the model, workload, catalogue date and capability-preservation rule in this browser. Spend, switching cost and bill contents are not saved. No account or notifications.

Constraint: replacements must preserve the model’s capabilities; any losses remain named trade-offs.

Historical decisions cannot be fully replayed from saved references: past prices, scores and capability evidence are not stored.