---
title: "Check GPT-5 Nano — is it still the one to buy · Undominated.ai"
canonical: https://undominated.ai/check/openai__gpt-5-nano/
description: "GPT-5 Nano: whether anything in this catalogue is both better and cheaper, as of Aug 28, 2026. Unrated stays unrated."
---

# Check GPT-5 Nano — is it still the one to buy · Undominated.ai

> GPT-5 Nano: whether anything in this catalogue is both better and cheaper, as of Aug 28, 2026. Unrated stays unrated.

# Check a model

Name what you are paying for. The plot is the same Pareto field as the frontier page. The answer is a computation on this catalogue, not an opinion. Bookmark the URL.

9 undominated of 134 · Aug 28, 2026

As of Aug 28, 2026, Gemma 4 26B A4B scores higher and costs less than GPT-5 Nano for Balanced on LMArena, but it is not a drop-in. You would give up: context, max output, file.

 Current model

GPT-5 Nano

 Balanced

3 tokens in per 1 out

 Balanced Summarise Chat Code gen Agentic
 Monthly spend (USD) Used only to say how many months a named switching cost would take to earn back. Leave blank to skip. Switching cost (USD) 134 rated, priced standard models. Chartreuse is the frontier. Cobalt is the model you named, when it is not on the staircase.

Gemma 4 26B A4B scores higher and costs less, but you would give up: context, max output, file.

 [GPT-5 Nano](/models/openai__gpt-5-nano/)

LMArena Elo

 **

1320.3

Effective $/M · Balanced

 **

$0.138/M

 [Gemma 4 26B A4B](/models/google__gemma-4-26b-a4b-it/)

LMArena Elo

 **

1434.6

Effective $/M · Balanced

 **

$0.138/M

## Higher score, lower price, named losses

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

| Model | LMArena | Effective $/M | You give up |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Gemma 4 26B A4B | 1434.6 | $0.138/M | context, max output, file |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 | 1431.6 | $0.101/M | image, file |
| Qwen3.5-Flash | 1397.6 | $0.114/M | max output, file |
| Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507 | 1384.3 | $0.084/M | context, max output, image, file, reasoning |
| Solar Pro 4 | 1376.2 | $0.052/M | image, file |

Copy watch URL [Open the frontier](/frontier/)

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