Shortlist
What is the cheapest capable LLM in 2026?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is our pick, scoring 88.3 out of 100 across craft, speed, control and value, with Xiaomi MiMo V2.6 Flash behind it on 86.9. These are the five best free-tier models that are still strong on answer quality, chosen from 26 that qualify and ranked on the same rubric as the rest of the index.
Index updated
Chosen from 26 that qualify, out of 73 tracked
The shortlist
- 01
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
Frontier-adjacent answers for thirty cents per million input tokens, with the weights under MIT.
Open weightsFree tierBest for
High-volume work where the token bill is the constraint
- 02
Xiaomi MiMo V2.6 Flash
Xiaomi's fast tier: a sparse open model at fourteen cents in and twenty-eight out.
Open weightsFree tierBest for
Cheap, fast coding and agent sub-tasks on open weights
- 03
GLM-5.3 Flash
A fast, MIT-licensed open model that human voters rank beside the big flagships.
Open weightsFree tierBest for
Fast, cheap agent and coding work on weights you control
- 04
Xiaomi MiMo V2.6 Pro
The strongest large open-weights model on the independent index, under MIT, for under a dollar out.
Open weightsFree tierBest for
Agentic work at the top of the open field, on weights you can modify
- 05
Qwen 3.8 Flash
A preview of the architecture behind Qwen 4, open, and priced at fifteen cents in.
Open weightsFree tierBest for
High-volume multimodal work at a very low price
