Cheapest LLMs Worth Using (Under $1 per Million Tokens, Blended)

These are the LLMs worth your time when budget matters. The list filters to models that cost under $1 per million tokens (blended at a 4:1 input:output ratio, which roughly matches typical chat use), then sorts by value score: Elo rating with a logarithmic price penalty, so you see the best quality per dollar at a glance. The arena rank shown is each model's rank in the overall text category, not a re-rank of this list.