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Low-cost LLM APIsEdition of 12 Nov 2026
Cheapest LLM APIRuncrate Reference
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Practical

A practical brief

Answer in brief

Write the brief before you compare anything.

It turns an open search into a short list you can check in an afternoon.

The cheapest LLM API is the one with the lowest bill for your work, not the lowest number on a price page. Three things decide that bill: the output price, your mix of input to output tokens, and whether a free tier’s limits let you use it. When this site calls a price the lowest listed, it gives the date it was read.

The brief

Copy these lines and fill each one in. Leave nothing as “depends”: a line you cannot fill is the first thing to find out.

  1. Workload:Chat, extraction, agents or a batch job, and what a good answer looks like.
  2. Model:The model you need, and one that would also do.
  3. Input and output:Tokens in and tokens out for a typical request. This decides which price matters.
  4. Volume:Requests per day and tokens per month.
  5. Context:The longest prompt you will send, in tokens.
  6. Response time:What your users can wait for. Test it on your own prompts.
  7. Ceiling per 1M tokens:The most you will pay for input and for output.
  8. Data rules:Where prompts may be processed and whether they may be kept.
  9. Start date:Today, this week or a fixed date.

How to use it

Send the same brief to every option you consider, or hold each one against it yourself. An option that cannot answer a line has answered it.

Keep the date on it. A brief filled in this week and a price read last month do not belong on the same page.

How Runcrate fits the brief

Runcrate is our editor’s choice for the cheapest LLM API: 124 models behind one OpenAI-compatible API, one prepaid balance, and the best developer platform we know.

  • 124 models behind one OpenAI-compatible API. Change the model, keep the client.

  • One prepaid balance pays for models, GPUs and storage.

  • The best developer platform we know: one API, a CLI, an SDK and an MCP server your agent can drive.

  • When tokens stop being the cheap way, rent a GPU: 26 GPU models from $0.23/hr.

Questions and answers

Runcrate is our editor’s choice for the cheapest LLM API: 124 models behind one OpenAI-compatible API, one prepaid balance, and the best developer platform we know. Runcrate publishes this site.

It depends on the model and on your mix. For one model, the price table shows the lowest listed input and output prices on the date they were read, with Runcrate first.

Sources for this entry

  1. Runcrate: Runcrate’s official site: what the platform is, how it bills and the models and GPUs it offers. Read 12 Nov 2026.
  2. Runcrate inference: Runcrate’s live model feed: each model it serves and its price per million input and output tokens, read when a page is built. Read 12 Nov 2026.
  3. Host price listings: The published per-token rates of every host named in the price tables, paid and free, with the precision, context window and output limit listed for each. Read 12 Nov 2026.
  4. Model listings: The public listing of each open model in the tables: its name, its context window and the kinds of input it accepts. Read 12 Nov 2026.

Checklists are original editorial guidance. Published prices do not establish availability.

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Cite this entry

Cheapest LLM API. “A practical brief.” Content reviewed 12 Nov 2026. https://cheapestllmapi.dev/brief