Alternatives
Best cheaper alternatives to Claude Sonnet 4.6
Looking for a cheaper or smarter replacement for Claude Sonnet 4.6 by Anthropic? We compared every LLM model with verifiable pricing on real input/output cost, context window, intelligence and modalities. 18 options are meaningfully cheaper.
Category: LLM 200K context
Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B99% CHEAPER
Google
Larger contextMore modalitiesSame category
$0.0375 in · $0.15 out / 1M Tokens 36 1.0M ctx 98%
Gemini 1.5 Flash98% CHEAPER
Google
Larger contextMore modalitiesSame category
$0.075 in · $0.3 out / 1M Tokens 48 1.0M ctx 98%
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite Preview91% CHEAPER
Google
Larger contextMore modalitiesSame category
$0.25 in · $1.5 out / 1M Tokens 1.0M ctx 98%
Gemini 2.0 Flash97% CHEAPER
Google
Larger contextMore modalitiesSame category
$0.1 in · $0.4 out / 1M Tokens 56 1.0M ctx 80%
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite91% CHEAPER
Google
Larger contextMore modalitiesSame category
$0.25 in · $1.5 out / 1M Tokens 1.0M ctx 80%
Gemini 2.5 Flash86% CHEAPER
Google
Larger contextMore modalitiesSame category
$0.3 in · $2.5 out / 1M Tokens 68 1.0M ctx 80%
GPT-5.4 Nano92% CHEAPER
OpenAI
Larger contextSame category
$0.2 in · $1.25 out / 1M Tokens 400K ctx 98%
GPT-5 Mini95% CHEAPER
OpenAI
Larger contextSame category
$0.000263 in · $1.25 out / 1M Tokens 400K ctx 82%
GPT-5.295% CHEAPER
OpenAI
Larger contextSame category
$0.000263 in · $1.25 out / 1M Tokens 400K ctx 82%
GPT 4.1 Mini95% CHEAPER
OpenAI
Larger contextSame category
$0.000263 in · $1.25512 out / 1M Tokens 53 1.0M ctx 82%
GPT 4.1 Nano95% CHEAPER
OpenAI
Larger contextSame category
$0.000263 in · $1.25512 out / 1M Tokens 41 1.0M ctx 82%
Gemini 3 Flash Preview81% CHEAPER
Google
Larger contextMore modalitiesSame category
$0.5 in · $3 out / 1M Tokens 1.0M ctx 80%
Qwen2.5 14B Instruct 1M89% CHEAPER
Alibaba Cloud
Larger contextSame category
$0.805 in · $0.144 out / 1M Tokens 1M ctx 78%
GPT-4o95% CHEAPER
OpenAI
More modalitiesSame category
$0.000263 in · $1.25 out / 1M Tokens 60 128K ctx 82%
GPT-4o Mini95% CHEAPER
OpenAI
More modalitiesSame category
$0.000263 in · $1.25 out / 1M Tokens 42 128K ctx 82%
Llama 3.1 8B Instant 128k99% CHEAPER
Groq
Same category
$0.05 in · $0.08 out / 1M Tokens 128K ctx 98%
Ministral 3 3B98% CHEAPER
Mistral AI
Same category
$0.1 in · $0.1 out / 1M Tokens 128K ctx 98%
Qwen3.5 9B98% CHEAPER
Together AI
Same category
$0.1 in · $0.15 out / 1M Tokens 262K ctx 98%
Costs are normalised to a blended 1M-token workload (or per-unit price for non-token models) using each model's latest verified pricing. Models with pricing under review are excluded from recommendations.