How do I open the Compare Prices grid?

Two ways: click the 'Compare Prices' tab at the top of the calculator card on the home page, or navigate directly to /tools/compare-prices. The standalone page is also linked from the main navigation under 'Tools'.

Can I share my comparison with teammates?

Yes — the page URL captures the current state. Send the link in Slack and your teammate sees the same grid. Useful for procurement and architecture-review meetings.

Is the data live or cached?

Live from OpenRouter (prices) and a blended Arena AI + Artificial Analysis pipeline (quality), refreshed on a 60-minute incremental cache. So the grid is at most an hour stale.

Where do I go after the grid to project monthly cost?

Once you've picked a winner, go to /tools/api-cost-estimator and plug in the model + your expected monthly token volume. The estimator does the per-1M math against your real workload mix.

Flagship-Tier LLMs Compared Side-by-Side in the Compare Prices Grid

Why a Within-Tier Comparison Beats Cross-Tier

TokenRate's new Compare Prices grid puts every model's per-token rates, context window, and quality score in a single side-by-side view. The point: stop flipping between provider pricing pages and OpenRouter tabs. You pick a provider dropdown, check the models you want, repeat for each provider, and the grid stacks every pick into one comparison table. Once you've picked your tier — Flagship — the next question is which **specific** Flagship model. Cross-tier comparisons (flagship vs fast) are usually a budgeting question. Within-tier comparisons are routing questions: "of the models built for the same workload class, which is the best fit for mine?" This guide grids Claude Opus 4, GPT-5, Grok 4, OpenAI o3 side-by-side in /tools/compare-prices. Related reading: quality per dollar LLM ranking 2026, LLM color-coded quality badges explained, and why the cheapest LLM isn't always the best value.

Flagship Tier Defined

Flagship tier on TokenRate means: flagship tier is for frontier-quality use cases where the per-token price is a rounding error against the value of the output. Input prices typically span $1.25 to $15.00 per 1M tokens within the tier. Quality scores span 79 to 86. So even within the tier, the Value column will diverge — which is the whole point of comparing within-tier instead of just defaulting to whichever model is most familiar.

The Flagship Models, Compared

**Claude Opus 4** (Anthropic): $15.00 / $75.00, 200K ctx, Q85, value 5.7. **GPT-5** (OpenAI): $1.25 / $10.00, 200K ctx, Q82, value 65.6. **Grok 4** (xAI): $3.00 / $15.00, 256K ctx, Q79, value 26.3. **OpenAI o3** (OpenAI): $10.00 / $40.00, 200K ctx, Q86, value 8.6. All of these appear in the Compare Prices grid under their respective provider dropdowns. Tick all of them and the grid renders the cross-provider tier comparison in seconds.

When to Pick Each Flagship Model

**Claude Opus 4**: pick when quality is non-negotiable and the bill is a rounding error against the value of correct output. **GPT-5**: pick when quality is non-negotiable and the bill is a rounding error against the value of correct output. **Grok 4**: pick when quality is non-negotiable and the bill is a rounding error against the value of correct output. **OpenAI o3**: pick when the task involves multi-step planning or math where chain-of-thought pays for itself. The picks aren't mutually exclusive — many production stacks route different traffic types to different Flagship models within the same week. For routing pattern guidance, see multi-model routing with quality scores.

Operationalizing the Flagship Pick

Once you've shortlisted within the Flagship tier in /tools/compare-prices, plug your token volume into /tools/api-cost-estimator for monthly cost projection. A common mistake: assuming Flagship models all behave the same on output cost. The grid makes the spread obvious — output costs across the Flagship tier in this guide span $10.00 to $75.00 per 1M, a 7.5× spread. The grid pulls prices live from OpenRouter and quality from a blended Arena AI + Artificial Analysis pipeline — both refresh on a 60-minute incremental cache, so the comparison reflects current rates not a baked-in snapshot. Run the comparison live at /tools/compare-prices, then bookmark the URL for next month's price audit.