Avg blended cost · $/M tokens
DeepSeek keeps V4-Pro; the index puts it back.
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TPI — Avg blended cost over time
TPI movements reflect the real cost of accessing frontier AI — rising as more capable models define the market, falling as cheaper alternatives gain traction.
Weekly pricing news
Updated September 18, 2026DeepSeek keeps V4-Pro after all
The 14 September retirement DeepSeek announced didn't happen: its pricing page now says V4-Pro continues with billing unchanged. The index removed it on the schedule and restores it today, at the same off-peak $0.66/$1.98.
GPT-6 Astra joins at Fable 5.1's price
OpenAI's flagship enters at $10/$50, so the two dearest models in the index now cost exactly the same. On AA's new v4.3 index they tie at 53 as well.
GLM-5.3-Flash takes the floor from DeepSeek
Z.ai's fast tier settles at $0.15/$0.50 after its launch discount ended. At $0.255 blended it undercuts every DeepSeek rate, ending DeepSeek's run at the bottom since the index began.
Weekly pricing news
Updated September 18, 2026DeepSeek keeps V4-Pro after all
The 14 September retirement DeepSeek announced didn't happen: its pricing page now says V4-Pro continues with billing unchanged. The index removed it on the schedule and restores it today, at the same off-peak $0.66/$1.98.
GPT-6 Astra joins at Fable 5.1's price
OpenAI's flagship enters at $10/$50, so the two dearest models in the index now cost exactly the same. On AA's new v4.3 index they tie at 53 as well.
GLM-5.3-Flash takes the floor from DeepSeek
Z.ai's fast tier settles at $0.15/$0.50 after its launch discount ended. At $0.255 blended it undercuts every DeepSeek rate, ending DeepSeek's run at the bottom since the index began.
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Model Positioning Map
Price vs capability tier across all TPI index members. Compare models in detail →
Fast — speed & cost·Mid — balanced·Frontier — highest capability
Floor and ceiling
How the gap between the cheapest and most expensive index members has evolved through 2026. Compare models in detail →
Models in index = number of AI models tracked. Multiplier = ratio of the most expensive blended price to the cheapest.
Cost Per Task
Costs calculated at TPI average · Input $2.17/M · Output $10.09/M · Use the Simulator to model your specific workload.
Email summary
Summarize a typical business email
$0.0021
↳ 500 in / 100 out tokens
Blog post
Generate a 1000-word blog article
$0.0145
↳ 340 in / 1,360 out tokens
Code review
Review 200 lines of code
$0.0150
↳ 3,200 in / 800 out tokens
Chat conversation
Average multi-turn chat session
$0.0133
↳ 1,500 in / 1,000 out tokens
SQL generation
Generate SQL from natural language
$0.0104
↳ 850 in / 850 out tokens
RAG query
Answer a question using retrieved context
$0.0116
↳ 3,000 in / 500 out tokens
Token counts shown are upper-end estimates for typical production workloads. Actual usage varies by prompt structure, context size, and use case.