The 8 Newest AI Models, Ranked: Which One Should You Pay For?

Eight new AI models are competing for your money right now, from six companies. On output, the priciest charges more than eight times what the cheapest charges, and we would still not recommend it to most businesses.

Our team does its video editing, landing pages and design work with AI every day. This ranking comes from that work, so it tells you which model we would pay for as a small business. It is an opinion, and a lab benchmark could order them differently. Below you will also find what each one costs as of 9 November 2026 and a way to pick your own in about an hour.

The ranking at a glance

These are list prices from each company's own page. A token is a small chunk of text, usually a bit less than a word. You pay separately for what you send in (input) and what the model writes back (output). On a monthly plan you pay a flat fee and get a usage allowance instead, and heavier models tend to use it up faster.

Why each model landed where it did

S tier: Claude Opus 5.5

This is the model we use for nearly everything: editing video, building landing pages, making designs. Its list price is $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens, which is 40% of what Fable 5.1 and GPT-6 Astra charge.

It also comes with the Claude Pro plan at $20 a month ($17 a month billed yearly), along with Claude Code, Anthropic's agent that works inside your folders and runs tools for you. That combination is why it sits alone at the top. You can reach it on the cheapest paid plan and use it for almost any job.

A tier: GPT-6 Astra

Astra is the most capable model OpenAI offers today, and we find it especially strong on 3D work in Blender. The trouble is the bill. At $10 input and $50 output it costs two and a half times as much as Opus 5.5 through the API. It is included on ChatGPT Plus, and the Pro plans get expanded access.

B tier: GPT-6.1 Sol

Sol is the value pick inside ChatGPT. It costs a fifth of Astra on the API ($2 / $10) and comes with ChatGPT Plus at $20 a month. Use it when you want things done faster and cheaper, and move up to Astra only when the first answer falls short.

B tier: Grok 4.7

xAI's model has the lowest output price on this list, $6 per million tokens. We would use it when getting something quickly matters more than getting it perfect.

There are two warnings. VentureBeat's launch review says it still lags the latest models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. The same review reports that, at its highest effort setting, Grok 4.7 used about 81,000 output tokens per test task on the Artificial Analysis index, three times the 27,000 GPT-6 Astra used. Compare the cost of a finished job, since a model that writes three times as much can wipe out a low token price.

B tier: Kimi K3.1 Pro

Moonshot's model costs $2 input and $10 output, and its open weights went up on Hugging Face on 4 November. Moonshot's own chart puts it close to Opus 5.5 on coding tests, for example 65.7 against 66.4 on Terminal-Bench 4.0.

We do not think it matches Opus 5.5 in practice. The one independent number on that chart, the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, has it at 55 against 58, and the rest have not been replicated. We also run into request timeouts often enough that we would keep it away from anything with a hard deadline. If budget comes first, it is still worth a look because of how much usage you get.

C tier: Gemini 4 Argon

Google calls Argon its most capable model, and its launch numbers look strong: 77.9% on DeepSWE v1.1 and first place on AutomationBench at 51.3%. Every one of those scores comes from Google or its partners, and none has been independently reproduced.

We do not see it competing with Opus 5.5 or GPT-6 Astra for the work we do. Check the date as well. The $2 / $10 price runs only until 30 November. From 1 December it doubles to $4 / $20, level with Opus 5.5, and it has no free tier in the API.

C tier: Claude Fable 5.1

This one surprises people. Fable 5.1 sits in C because of cost. At $10 input and $50 output it is two and a half times the price of Opus 5.5, for work most businesses do not need it for. Claude Pro reaches it only through paid usage credits, while Max ($100 a month) and Ultra ($200 a month) include it up to half of the weekly limit. Its best use is as a planner that hands the work to Opus 5.5 workers, which we set up below.

C tier: Meta Muse Wonder Full

Access is the problem. Meta released it on 12 October 2026 for Muse Code subscribers only, and it is not offered through Meta's API, so most people have no simple way to reach it.

Meta has also said little about how it was trained. Its announcement promises a fuller safety report later, and coverage of its documentation lists no training data sources or architecture details. We would wait. If you do subscribe, note that Muse Code plans reportedly default to a Contributor mode that lets Meta train on your content. Turn that off before you paste in client work.

How to choose your model in five steps

Use the ranking as a starting point. The model that wins for your business is the one that does your most common jobs well at a price you can keep paying. Set aside about an hour.

1. Write down your three most common AI jobs. Be specific. "Turn a call transcript into a client recap" is useful, and "writing" is not. You should end up with three lines on a page, which takes about 10 minutes.
2. Pick how you will pay. If one or two people will use AI by hand, choose a monthly plan so the bill stays fixed. Claude Pro and ChatGPT Plus are both about $20 a month. If a tool or automation needs to call a model, you need the API, which bills per token and is paid for separately from a chat plan.
3. Pick two models to test. Take one from the highest tier you can afford and one a tier below it. Free plans will not do for this: Claude's free plan has no Opus, and ChatGPT Free has neither Sol nor Astra.
4. Run one real job through both. Use a job you have already done, so you know what good looks like. Paste the same prompt and the same material into each model:

   CopyHere is a real piece of work from my business.
   [Paste the call notes, draft, brief or data.]
   
   Do this job: [one sentence, for example "write the follow-up email to this client"].
   
   Who it is for: [the reader].
   What good looks like: [two or three things the result must do].
   
   Do not guess. If something is missing, list what you need before you start.

5. Score the two results and set a default. Ask four questions. Is it correct? Could you send it with light edits? How many edits did it take? How much of your plan or budget did it use? Write down a default model and one fallback, and use only those two for a month.

If both results are poor, look at the prompt before you blame the model. Add an example of work you liked, say who the reader is, and run it again.

How to spend less: a strong model plans, a cheaper one does the work

You do not need your most expensive model for every step. Research, first drafts and simple edits can go to a cheaper model while the strong one plans and checks the result. On Anthropic's price list, Sonnet 5.5 costs half of what Opus 5.5 costs ($2 / $10 against $4 / $20). Anthropic's cost guide says Sonnet handles most coding tasks well and suggests keeping Opus for harder reasoning.

Here is the setup in Claude Code. It takes about five minutes and needs a paid Claude plan.

1. Choose the planner. Open Claude Code in your project folder and type /model. Pick Opus 5.5.
2. Create the worker. Save the text below as .claude/agents/sonnet-worker.md inside your project, or paste it into Claude Code and ask it to create that file. Only the name and description are required, and the model line is what makes this worker cheaper.

   Copy---
   name: sonnet-worker
   description: Does research, first drafts and simple edits that the main session hands over.
   model: sonnet
   ---
   
   You do one small job at a time. Follow the instructions you are given,
   keep to the files you are told about, and report back with what you did
   and anything you are unsure of.

3. Restart once if needed. If that was the first file in a new agents folder, close Claude Code and open it again. After that, it picks up changes within a few seconds.
4. Give it a job. Paste this and fill in the last line:

   CopyPlan this job yourself, step by step. Hand each research step and first draft
   to the sonnet-worker subagent. Check what it sends back before you show me the result.
   
   The job: [your job]

5. Check that it worked. You should see Claude start the sonnet-worker subagent for the smaller steps. Type /usage afterwards: on a Pro, Max or Ultra plan it shows how much of your recent usage went to subagents.

The same setup works one level up. Start the session on Fable 5.1 and change the worker's line to model: opus. The planning costs more, and the bulk of the writing happens at Opus prices.

When something goes wrong, it is usually one of these three:

• Claude does the work itself and never calls the worker. It decides from the description in the file. Name the subagent in your request, or type @ and pick it from the list, which guarantees it runs.
• The worker runs on the wrong model. Check the model line first. On Claude Code versions before 2.1.251, the CLAUDE_CODE_SUBAGENT_MODEL setting overrode that line, so update Claude Code if you have that setting.
• The quality drops. Move that one step back to the main session. Cheap workers suit the steps a person can check quickly.

Mistakes that cost the most

• Trusting a company's own benchmark. Google's Argon scores and Moonshot's Kimi chart are both self-reported. Treat them as a reason to test a model and look for an independent number before you switch.
• Comparing the price per token and stopping there. The Grok numbers above show how far token price and job price can drift apart.
• Forgetting that launch prices end. Gemini 4 Argon's price doubles on 1 December. If you build a tool around it this month, budget for the later rate.
• Buying the top plan first. Start on a $20 plan. You will know within a few weeks whether you are hitting the limit.
• Pasting client data without reading the policy. The Muse Code default above is one example. Check how your plan treats your content before anything confidential goes in.

Who this ranking is not for

If your work is one narrow specialty, test models on that job alone. OpenAI even lists a separate legal configuration of Astra, which tells you that general rankings only go so far. If you write software for a living, run the candidates on your own codebase, since our work leans toward marketing. If privacy rules mean you must host a model yourself, Kimi K3.1 Pro's open weights are the only route on this list, and you should expect to need serious server hardware.

These models change fast, and so do their prices. We checked every price here on 9 November 2026, so check the linked pages before you commit to a year of anything.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best AI model right now?

For most business work we pick Claude Opus 5.5. It handles video editing, landing pages and design, it costs $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens on the API, and it is included on the $20 Claude Pro plan. GPT-6 Astra is the strongest alternative, at a much higher API price.

Which AI model is the best value on a $20 plan?

GPT-6.1 Sol on ChatGPT Plus is the one we would use for fast, cheaper work. Claude Pro is also about $20 a month and includes Opus 5.5 and Claude Code, so try both on a real job before you settle.

Is the most expensive AI model the best?

Not for most businesses. Claude Fable 5.1 and GPT-6 Astra cost $10 input and $50 output per million tokens, two and a half times the price of Claude Opus 5.5. Fable 5.1 is in our C tier because of that cost.

Can Claude Opus use cheaper models to save money?

Yes. In Claude Code you can create a subagent with model: sonnet in its file. Opus 5.5 plans the job and hands research and first drafts to the Sonnet 5.5 worker, which costs half as much on Anthropic's price list.

Are free AI plans good enough?

They are fine for trying the tools. Claude's free plan has no Opus, and ChatGPT Free does not include GPT-6.1 Sol or GPT-6 Astra, so you cannot judge the top models from a free account.

Will these AI prices change?

Yes. Gemini 4 Argon is scheduled to double on 1 December 2026, from $2 / $10 to $4 / $20 per million tokens. We checked every price in this guide on 9 November 2026, so confirm on the company's own page before you commit.

Sources

• Anthropic: Claude API pricing
• Anthropic: Claude plans
• Anthropic: Claude Code subagents
• Anthropic: manage Claude Code costs
• OpenAI: API pricing
• OpenAI: ChatGPT plans
• PCWorld: ChatGPT plan changes
• Google: Gemini API pricing
• Digital Applied: Gemini 4 Argon benchmarks
• xAI: Grok models and pricing
• VentureBeat: Grok 4.7 review
• Yotta Labs: Kimi K3.1 Pro specs and benchmarks
• Meta: Introducing Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full
• NeoTeo: Muse Wonder access routes