Filtered comparison
By Daniel Reeve · figures read at source 2026-09-10 · page updated 2026-09-18
“Cheapest” splits into two different questions with two different answers: the cheapest monthly plan for a person, and the cheapest rate per million tokens for something running at volume. They do not have the same winner, so both are below.
The shortlist
“Cheapest” splits into two different questions with two different answers: the cheapest monthly plan for a person, and the cheapest rate per million tokens for something running at volume. They do not have the same winner, so both are below.
| Tool | Best for | Price | Free tier | Context window | Web search | File upload | Image gen | Cited sources | EU hosting | Open weights | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Mistral Le Chat |
EU data preference, self-hosting, budget | Free · Pro $14.99/mo · Team $24.99/user · Students $5.99 | Yes — plus $10/mo API credits | Not verified | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial | Yes | Yes | Open ↗ |
 Grok |
High-volume generation, current topics | API $2.00 in / $6.00 out per 1M tokens | Limited | 500K tokens · cutoff 1 Feb 2026 | Yes | Partial | Yes | Partial | No | Not verified | Open ↗ |
 Claude |
Writing, analysis, long documents | Free · Pro $20/mo ($17 annually) · Max from $100 | Yes — Sonnet and Haiku, 5-hour rolling window | 1M tokens · 128K output | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Open ↗ |
| ChatGPT | General-purpose work, the widest tool ecosystem | Free · Plus $20/mo · Pro tier above it | Yes — with lower limits | 1.05M tokens (GPT-6 Astra) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | No | No | Open ↗ |
 Gemini |
Google Workspace users, files, video | Free · Google AI Plus / Pro / Ultra (varies by country) | Yes — full app access | Not verified | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Depends | No | Open ↗ |
Read from each vendor's own pages on 2026-09-10. Cells marked Not verified are gaps we could not close at source — we publish them rather than copy a figure from another comparison. How we test.
One by one
Mistral AI · Free · Pro $14.99/mo · Team $24.99/user · Students $5.99
The cheapest paid plan in this comparison at $14.99/mo, with Team at $24.99 per user and a student rate of $5.99 — and the subscription includes $10/mo of API credits. EU-hosted in France.
xAI · API $2.00 in / $6.00 out per 1M tokens
The cheapest published token rate here: $2.00 in and $6.00 out per 1M. If you are generating at volume and editing afterwards, this is the number that decides it.
Anthropic · Free · Pro $20/mo ($17 annually) · Max from $100
$20/mo, or $17 billed annually, with Max from $100. The free tier covers Sonnet and Haiku on a 5-hour rolling window rather than a monthly quota — worth understanding before you assume you have hit a limit.
OpenAI · Free · Plus $20/mo · Pro tier above it
$20/mo for Plus with a Pro tier above it. Not cheap, but the pricing and the model specifications are published, which is more than several of the cheaper options manage.
Google · Free · Google AI Plus / Pro / Ultra (varies by country)
The free tier includes full app access rather than a cut-down model, which makes it the strongest free option here. Paid tier names and prices vary by country, so check yours.
The honest part
Perplexity does not publish its Pro price in a form we could read at source, Microsoft Copilot's price depends entirely on which product your Microsoft 365 licence includes, and DeepSeek's current token pricing was not readable at source when we checked. Meta AI is free. Where we cannot read a number at the vendor's page, we do not print one.
Questions
For a paid monthly plan, Mistral Le Chat at $14.99 — and it is EU-hosted, with API credits included. For cost per token at volume, Grok at $2 in / $6 out per 1M is the cheapest published rate in this set.
Often, yes. Gemini's free tier includes full app access, and Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Mistral and DeepSeek all run usable free tiers. The limits are the catch — Claude's, for instance, reset on a 5-hour rolling window rather than monthly.
Because we could not read a current figure at either vendor's own page when we checked on 10 September 2026. We publish gaps rather than filling them from other comparison articles. Both prices are on their own sites — that is the authoritative source, not this table.