Cheapest AI model for translating documents
Translation has an unusual cost profile: output volume roughly equals input volume, so output pricing matters as much as input. We ranked every model at 1,000 input + 1,000 output, the cleanest 1:1 benchmark.
Ranked cheapest first
| # | Model | Input $/M | Output $/M | Per 1M calls |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Llama 3.1 8B Meta |
$0.18 | $0.18 | $360 |
| #2 | GPT-5 Nano OpenAI |
$0.05 | $0.40 | $450 |
| #3 | GPT-4.1 Nano OpenAI |
$0.10 | $0.40 | $500 |
| #4 | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite |
$0.10 | $0.40 | $500 |
| #5 | GPT-4o mini OpenAI |
$0.15 | $0.60 | $750 |
| #6 | DeepSeek V3 DeepSeek |
$0.27 | $1.10 | $1,370 |
| #7 | Llama 3.1 70B Meta |
$0.59 | $0.79 | $1,380 |
| #8 | GPT-5.4 Nano OpenAI |
$0.20 | $1.25 | $1,450 |
| #9 | Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B Alibaba |
$0.80 | $0.80 | $1,600 |
| #10 | Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite |
$0.25 | $1.50 | $1,750 |
| #11 | Llama 3.3 70B Meta |
$0.88 | $0.88 | $1,760 |
| #12 | Qwen 2.5 72B Alibaba |
$0.90 | $0.90 | $1,800 |
| #13 | GPT-4.1 Mini OpenAI |
$0.40 | $1.60 | $2,000 |
| #14 | GPT-5 Mini OpenAI |
$0.25 | $2.00 | $2,250 |
| #15 | DeepSeek V3.1 DeepSeek |
$0.60 | $1.70 | $2,300 |
| #16 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
$0.30 | $2.50 | $2,800 |
| #17 | Gemini 3 Flash |
$0.50 | $3.00 | $3,500 |
| #18 | Qwen3 Coder 480B Alibaba |
$2.00 | $2.00 | $4,000 |
| #19 | GPT-5.4 Mini OpenAI |
$0.75 | $4.50 | $5,250 |
| #20 | o3-mini OpenAI |
$1.10 | $4.40 | $5,500 |
| #21 | o4-mini OpenAI |
$1.10 | $4.40 | $5,500 |
| #22 | GLM-5.1 zhipu |
$1.40 | $4.40 | $5,800 |
| #23 | Claude Haiku 4.5 Anthropic |
$1.00 | $5.00 | $6,000 |
| #24 | Llama 3.1 405B Meta |
$3.50 | $3.50 | $7,000 |
| #25 | Mistral Large Mistral |
$2.00 | $6.00 | $8,000 |
| #26 | GPT-4.1 OpenAI |
$2.00 | $8.00 | $10,000 |
| #27 | o3 OpenAI |
$2.00 | $8.00 | $10,000 |
| #28 | DeepSeek R1 DeepSeek |
$3.00 | $7.00 | $10,000 |
| #29 | GPT-5.1 OpenAI |
$1.25 | $10.00 | $11,250 |
| #30 | GPT-5 OpenAI |
$1.25 | $10.00 | $11,250 |
| #31 | Gemini 2.5 Pro |
$1.25 | $10.00 | $11,250 |
| #32 | GPT-4o OpenAI |
$2.50 | $10.00 | $12,500 |
| #33 | Gemini 3.1 Pro |
$2.00 | $12.00 | $14,000 |
| #34 | GPT-5.3 OpenAI |
$1.75 | $14.00 | $15,750 |
| #35 | GPT-5.2 OpenAI |
$1.75 | $14.00 | $15,750 |
| #36 | GPT-5.4 OpenAI |
$2.50 | $15.00 | $17,500 |
| #37 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 Anthropic |
$3.00 | $15.00 | $18,000 |
| #38 | Claude Opus 4.8 Anthropic |
$5.00 | $25.00 | $30,000 |
| #39 | GPT-5.5 OpenAI |
$5.00 | $30.00 | $35,000 |
| #40 | GPT-4 Turbo OpenAI |
$10.00 | $30.00 | $40,000 |
| #41 | Claude Opus 4.8 (Fast Mode) Anthropic |
$10.00 | $50.00 | $60,000 |
| #42 | o3-pro OpenAI |
$20.00 | $80.00 | $100,000 |
| #43 | GPT-5 Pro OpenAI |
$15.00 | $120.00 | $135,000 |
| #44 | GPT-5.2 Pro OpenAI |
$21.00 | $168.00 | $189,000 |
| #45 | GPT-5.5 Pro OpenAI |
$30.00 | $180.00 | $210,000 |
| #46 | GPT-5.4 Pro OpenAI |
$30.00 | $180.00 | $210,000 |
Workload assumption: 1,000 input tokens + 1,000 output tokens per call, scaled to 1M calls. Pricing as of 2026-05-31.
How to use this ranking
The winner is mathematically cheapest at the listed workload shape — that's not the same as "best for the use case." Cheaper models often have lower reasoning depth, smaller context windows, or worse instruction-following. Use this as the cost baseline, then test the top 2-3 candidates on your real prompts via the live counter.
Pricing snapshots come from each provider's published rate cards and are tracked in the full pricing changelog. Tokenizer accuracy per model is documented in the methodology.