--- title: "The value frontier — what is actually worth buying · Undominated.ai" canonical: https://undominated.ai/frontier/ description: "Only 12 of 145 rated AI models are undominated. Each of the others has a model that scores at least as high, costs no more, and wins on one of the two." --- # The value frontier — what is actually worth buying · Undominated.ai > Only 12 of 145 rated AI models are undominated. Each of the others has a model that scores at least as high, costs no more, and wins on one of the two. Understand the numbers # The value frontier Every model, plotted by what it costs against how good it is. The staircase is the frontier: for those models, no other model scores at least as high, costs no more, and wins on one of the two. Everything below and to the right has such a model on the staircase, though not always a like-for-like replacement. [On the frontier ↓](#frontier-models) Share [Frontier embed (SVG)](/embed/frontier.svg) 12 undominated of 145 133 worse deals as of Oct 6, 2026 Changing the workload below moves the frontier less than you would expect: **46% of frontier models are on it under every workload** (7 move). What does change is the price — the same model swings up to **3.6×** across these shapes. So the control is not about which models to consider. It is about what you would actually pay for them. Workload Balanced Summarise Chat Code gen Agentic Measured on General Document Show the 133 dominated models General · Balanced Model Claude Opus 5.5 · 1511.7 · $8.00/M · on the frontier Claude Fable 5.1 · 1510.6 · $20.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Claude Opus 4.6 · 1503.2 · $10.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Claude Opus 5 · 1502.1 · $10.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemini 3.8 Flash · 1497.0 · $3.00/M · on the frontier Claude Fable 5 · 1491.7 · $20.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists MiMo-V2.6-Pro · 1491.0 · $0.540/M · on the frontier Muse Spark 1.3 · 1489.9 · $2.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Claude Opus 4.7 · 1489.9 · $10.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemini 3.7 Flash · 1487.0 · $3.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Muse Spark 1.2 · 1483.2 · $2.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview · 1480.2 · $4.50/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemini 3.6 Flash · 1479.5 · $1.50/M · a better, cheaper option exists Muse Spark 1.1 · 1479.2 · $2.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemini 3.5 Flash · 1477.7 · $3.38/M · a better, cheaper option exists Kimi K3 · 1475.9 · $3.76/M · a better, cheaper option exists GLM 5.3 · 1471.4 · $1.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists GLM 5.2 · 1470.4 · $1.12/M · a better, cheaper option exists GLM 5.3 Flash · 1469.6 · $0.238/M · on the frontier GPT-5.5 · 1466.8 · $11.25/M · a better, cheaper option exists Claude Sonnet 5.5 · 1466.6 · $4.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists MiMo-V2.5-Pro · 1465.0 · $0.544/M · a better, cheaper option exists DeepSeek V4.1 Flash · 1462.5 · $0.182/M · on the frontier GLM 5.1 · 1461.5 · $1.83/M · a better, cheaper option exists Claude Opus 4.8 · 1461.0 · $10.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemini 2.5 Pro · 1457.8 · $3.44/M · a better, cheaper option exists Claude Sonnet 4.6 · 1457.8 · $6.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists MiMo-V2.6-Flash · 1456.4 · $0.175/M · on the frontier GPT-5.6 Sol · 1456.3 · $8.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Kimi K2.6 · 1455.5 · $0.961/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3.7 Plus · 1454.6 · $0.560/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-5.4 · 1452.2 · $5.63/M · a better, cheaper option exists Claude Opus 4.5 · 1451.0 · $10.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Grok 4.5 · 1448.1 · $3.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3.6 Max Preview · 1446.8 · $2.31/M · a better, cheaper option exists GLM 5 · 1446.3 · $1.09/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-5.6 Terra · 1446.3 · $4.50/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-6.1 Sol · 1445.6 · $4.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Kimi K2.5 · 1445.2 · $1.20/M · a better, cheaper option exists DeepSeek V4 Pro 0423 · 1445.2 · $1.21/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemma 4 31B · 1443.4 · $0.205/M · a better, cheaper option exists Claude Sonnet 5 · 1442.9 · $4.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-6 Astra · 1442.3 · $20.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Inkling · 1441.8 · $1.73/M · a better, cheaper option exists Hy3 · 1440.7 · $0.231/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3.8 27B · 1440.7 · $0.562/M · a better, cheaper option exists GLM 4.6 · 1439.9 · $0.760/M · a better, cheaper option exists Claude Sonnet 4.5 · 1438.6 · $6.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3.5 397B A17B · 1438.0 · $0.878/M · a better, cheaper option exists GLM 5V Turbo · 1437.2 · $1.90/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3.6 Plus · 1436.7 · $0.731/M · a better, cheaper option exists GLM 4.7 · 1435.5 · $0.738/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite · 1434.7 · $0.850/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemma 4 26B A4B · 1433.9 · $0.127/M · on the frontier DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 · 1432.1 · $0.113/M · on the frontier MiniMax M3 · 1432.1 · $0.485/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-5.6 Luna · 1431.0 · $0.450/M · a better, cheaper option exists GLM 4.5 · 1430.3 · $1.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists R1 0528 · 1427.9 · $0.920/M · a better, cheaper option exists MiMo-V2.5 · 1427.5 · $0.175/M · a better, cheaper option exists Grok 4.6 · 1427.4 · $3.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists DeepSeek V3.2 · 1424.5 · $0.290/M · a better, cheaper option exists DeepSeek V3.2 Exp · 1422.4 · $0.305/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-5.1 · 1422.2 · $3.44/M · a better, cheaper option exists Mistral Medium 3.5 · 1421.2 · $3.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct · 1420.1 · $0.370/M · a better, cheaper option exists DeepSeek V3.1 · 1419.7 · $0.453/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507 · 1419.3 · $0.205/M · a better, cheaper option exists Claude Opus 4.1 · 1418.6 · $30.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct · 1417.3 · $0.268/M · a better, cheaper option exists DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus · 1417.1 · $0.453/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3.5-122B-A10B · 1417.1 · $0.715/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemini 2.5 Flash · 1417.0 · $0.850/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview · 1415.7 · $0.563/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507 · 1415.2 · $0.748/M · a better, cheaper option exists Inkling Small · 1413.7 · $0.638/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3 Max · 1412.4 · $1.56/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-5.2 · 1412.3 · $4.81/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-5.4 Mini · 1411.4 · $1.69/M · a better, cheaper option exists o3 · 1409.9 · $3.50/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3.5-27B · 1408.9 · $0.536/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-5 · 1406.1 · $3.44/M · a better, cheaper option exists MiniMax M2.7 · 1404.6 · $0.525/M · a better, cheaper option exists Step 3.5 Flash · 1403.0 · $0.150/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking · 1400.7 · $1.30/M · a better, cheaper option exists Grok 4.7 · 1399.9 · $3.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3.5-Flash · 1397.0 · $0.114/M · a better, cheaper option exists Grok 4.3 · 1396.7 · $1.56/M · a better, cheaper option exists Claude Haiku 4.5 · 1396.1 · $2.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-6 Sol · 1395.4 · $4.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3.5-35B-A3B · 1394.4 · $0.355/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-6 Luna · 1391.5 · $0.200/M · a better, cheaper option exists Solar Pro 4 · 1386.2 · $0.525/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507 · 1384.1 · $0.143/M · a better, cheaper option exists GLM 4.5 Air · 1383.9 · $0.310/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-4.1 · 1383.0 · $3.50/M · a better, cheaper option exists GLM 4.6V · 1376.8 · $0.450/M · a better, cheaper option exists DeepSeek V3 0324 · 1375.0 · $0.438/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-5 Mini · 1373.2 · $0.688/M · a better, cheaper option exists R1 · 1372.7 · $1.15/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-5.4 Nano · 1372.1 · $0.463/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking · 1368.3 · $0.413/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3 235B A22B · 1366.6 · $0.796/M · a better, cheaper option exists o1 · 1365.8 · $26.25/M · a better, cheaper option exists gpt-oss-120b · 1365.4 · $0.065/M · on the frontier Nova 2 Lite · 1361.8 · $0.850/M · a better, cheaper option exists MiniMax M2.5 · 1359.3 · $0.521/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemma 3 27B · 1357.8 · $0.100/M · a better, cheaper option exists Mercury 2 · 1355.2 · $0.375/M · a better, cheaper option exists o4 Mini · 1353.2 · $1.93/M · a better, cheaper option exists GLM 4.7 Flash · 1350.9 · $0.145/M · a better, cheaper option exists MiniMax M1 · 1342.8 · $0.850/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-4.1 Mini · 1340.4 · $0.700/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3 32B · 1340.1 · $0.130/M · a better, cheaper option exists Trinity Large Thinking · 1340.0 · $0.388/M · a better, cheaper option exists MiniMax M2 · 1339.9 · $0.525/M · a better, cheaper option exists Claude Sonnet 4 · 1339.1 · $6.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists o3 Mini High · 1336.6 · $1.93/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemma 3 12B · 1334.2 · $0.075/M · a better, cheaper option exists GLM 4.5V · 1332.8 · $0.900/M · a better, cheaper option exists DeepSeek V3 · 1332.5 · $0.500/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-5 Nano · 1320.0 · $0.138/M · a better, cheaper option exists o3 Mini · 1319.4 · $1.93/M · a better, cheaper option exists Granite 4.2 8B · 1317.8 · $0.108/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen3 30B A3B · 1316.6 · $0.215/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-4o (2024-05-13) · 1300.4 · $7.50/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemma 3 4B · 1290.8 · $0.063/M · on the frontier gpt-oss-20b · 1287.7 · $0.036/M · on the frontier GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) · 1286.4 · $0.263/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-4.1 Nano · 1284.8 · $0.175/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-4o (2024-08-06) · 1282.5 · $4.38/M · a better, cheaper option exists Llama 3.3 70B Instruct · 1274.1 · $0.201/M · a better, cheaper option exists GPT-4 Turbo · 1271.7 · $15.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen2.5 72B Instruct · 1269.0 · $0.370/M · a better, cheaper option exists Mistral Large 2407 · 1266.1 · $3.00/M · a better, cheaper option exists Llama 3.1 70B Instruct · 1260.9 · $0.720/M · a better, cheaper option exists Mistral Small 3 · 1233.6 · $0.058/M · a better, cheaper option exists Gemma 2 27B · 1231.3 · $0.650/M · a better, cheaper option exists Qwen2.5 Coder 32B Instruct · 1230.0 · $0.745/M · a better, cheaper option exists Command R+ (08-2024) · 1228.9 · $4.38/M · a better, cheaper option exists Phi 4 · 1216.7 · $0.088/M · a better, cheaper option exists Command R (08-2024) · 1187.3 · $0.263/M · a better, cheaper option exists Llama 3.1 8B Instruct · 1186.5 · $0.025/M · on the frontier Llama 3.2 3B Instruct · 1109.5 · $0.120/M · a better, cheaper option exists Llama 3.2 1B Instruct · 1054.6 · $0.071/M · a better, cheaper option exists [Claude Opus 5.5](/models/anthropic__claude-opus-5.5/) Anthropic on the frontier General capability 1511.7 Effective $/M $8.00 /M Compared with the previous price rung, Gemini 3.8 Flash: +14.7 Elo · +$5.00/M for Balanced. Score differences are not task-success or capability guarantees. [Compare General scores and capabilities](/compare/?models=google%2Fgemini-3.8-flash%2Canthropic%2Fclaude-opus-5.5) effective $ per million tokens — log scale · General capability ## On the frontier General · Balanced · Effective $/M - 1 [Llama 3.1 8B Instruct Meta](/models/meta-llama__llama-3.1-8b-instruct/) 1186.5 $0.025 /M cheapest rung Inspect - 2 [gpt-oss-20b OpenAI](/models/openai__gpt-oss-20b/) 1287.7 $0.036 /M +101.2 Elo · +$0.011/M vs previous rung Inspect - 3 [Gemma 3 4B Google](/models/google__gemma-3-4b-it/) 1290.8 $0.063 /M +3.1 Elo · +$0.027/M vs previous rung Inspect - 4 [gpt-oss-120b OpenAI](/models/openai__gpt-oss-120b/) 1365.4 $0.065 /M +74.6 Elo · +$0.0025/M vs previous rung Inspect - 5 [DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 DeepSeek](/models/deepseek__deepseek-v4-flash/) 1432.1 $0.113 /M +66.7 Elo · +$0.048/M vs previous rung Inspect - 6 [Gemma 4 26B A4B Google](/models/google__gemma-4-26b-a4b-it/) 1433.9 $0.127 /M +1.8 Elo · +$0.014/M vs previous rung Inspect - 7 [MiMo-V2.6-Flash Xiaomi](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.6-flash/) 1456.4 $0.175 /M +22.5 Elo · +$0.048/M vs previous rung Inspect - 8 [DeepSeek V4.1 Flash DeepSeek](/models/deepseek__deepseek-v4.1-flash/) 1462.5 $0.182 /M +6.1 Elo · +$0.0073/M vs previous rung Inspect - 9 [GLM 5.3 Flash Z.ai](/models/z-ai__glm-5.3-flash/) 1469.6 $0.238 /M +7.1 Elo · +$0.055/M vs previous rung Inspect - 10 [MiMo-V2.6-Pro Xiaomi](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.6-pro/) 1491.0 $0.540 /M +21.4 Elo · +$0.303/M vs previous rung Inspect - 11 [Gemini 3.8 Flash Google](/models/google__gemini-3.8-flash/) 1497.0 $3.00 /M +6.0 Elo · +$2.46/M vs previous rung Inspect - 12 [Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic](/models/anthropic__claude-opus-5.5/) 1511.7 $8.00 /M +14.7 Elo · +$5.00/M vs previous rung Inspect ## Cite this claim Plain text and BibTeX Plain Copy 133 of 145 rated, priced models have an alternative with an equal-or-higher measured score and an equal-or-lower price, with a strict advantage on at least one axis. 12 are not dominated on these two axes. As of 2026-10-06. Lens: LMArena Elo (CC BY 4.0). Ranking source digest: 06cd12db54e2968c. https://undominated.ai/frontier/ Publication: sha256:ecef83f767cd4d2c21766f6a5b4dffa36c06351f23657542d473bc1a030c0932; calculation SHA-256: 5ae4d0bee9b70298dd437b05df87c32acb407040b50bf88240677f295f25955d; permitted inputs: https://undominated.ai/data/publications/manifests/ecef83f767cd4d2c21766f6a5b4dffa36c06351f23657542d473bc1a030c0932.json BibTeX Copy @misc{undominated-dominated-census-2026-10-06, author = {{Undominated.ai}}, title = {Dominated census — Undominated.ai}, year = {2026}, url = {https://undominated.ai/frontier/}, note = {as of 2026-10-06; LMArena Elo (CC BY 4.0); ranking source 06cd12db54e2968c}, annote = {Publication: sha256:ecef83f767cd4d2c21766f6a5b4dffa36c06351f23657542d473bc1a030c0932; calculation SHA-256: 5ae4d0bee9b70298dd437b05df87c32acb407040b50bf88240677f295f25955d; permitted inputs: https://undominated.ai/data/publications/manifests/ecef83f767cd4d2c21766f6a5b4dffa36c06351f23657542d473bc1a030c0932.json} } Download BibTeX [LMArena scores used under CC BY 4.0](/methodology/) · numbers recomputed from the catalogue on this page. [Input identity & calculation SHA](https://undominated.ai/data/publications/manifests/ecef83f767cd4d2c21766f6a5b4dffa36c06351f23657542d473bc1a030c0932.json). ## Continue your investigation - [Compare a shortlist](/compare/) - [Inspect confidence ranges](/ranges/) - [Measure marginal cost](/knee/) - [Read frontier rules](/methodology/)