LLM API pricing · verified June 2026
LLM / OpenAI alternatives

The best OpenAI API alternatives in 2026

Looking for a OpenAI API alternative? We priced every provider we track on the same workload, so you can compare on real cost — not marketing. The lowest-cost alternative to OpenAI is DeepSeek ($17.19/mo at its cheapest — cheaper than OpenAI's $52.3). Ranked by cost, with context window and head-to-head links below.

Prices verified June 2026 · changes logged in the changelog

OpenAI alternatives, ranked by cost

Every alternative provider priced on the same example workload (chatbot, 100k requests/mo, 70% cached). “Cheapest” is each provider's lowest-cost model; “top” is its flagship. Lowest cheapest-price is highlighted.

ProviderCheapest ≈ $/moTop model ≈ $/moMax contextHead-to-head
DeepSeek2 models · cheapest DeepSeek V4 Flash $17.19$52.711M tokens OpenAI vs DeepSeek →
Mistral11 models · cheapest Ministral 3 (3B) $23$82256k tokens OpenAI vs Mistral →
Google (Gemini)4 models · cheapest Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite $63.5$5081M tokens OpenAI vs Gemini →
xAI (Grok)2 models · cheapest Grok Build 0.1 $148$1781M tokens OpenAI vs Grok →
Anthropic4 models · cheapest Claude Haiku 4.5 $224$2,2401M tokens OpenAI vs Claude →

≈ $/mo from the same engine as the calculator. See OpenAI pricing in detail or the full cheapest LLM API ranking.

Is OpenAI actually the right price for you?
Put OpenAI next to every alternative at your volume, token mix and cache share.
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All 28 models → OpenAI pricing → Anthropic pricing → Gemini pricing → DeepSeek pricing → Grok pricing → Mistral pricing → Cheapest LLM API → Open calculator →

Frequently asked questions

It depends what you're optimising for. On cost, the lowest-priced alternative we track is DeepSeek ($17.19/mo at its cheapest). For a flagship-class alternative, compare the “top model” column above. Use the calculator to rank them for your exact workload.
At its cheapest model, DeepSeek is the lowest-cost alternative to OpenAI we track ($17.19/mo on the example workload). See the ranked table above for the full order.
OpenAI's cheapest model runs about $52.3/mo on our example workload. Each alternative in the table is priced the same way, so the numbers are directly comparable. Head-to-head pages break each pairing down model by model.
Every per-token rate is taken from each provider's official pricing and verified by hand (June 2026); the monthly figure is computed by our cost engine. Changes are logged in the price changelog.