Which AI API is cheapest in 2025?

Gemini 1.5 Flash is the cheapest major model at $0.075/$0.30 per million input/output tokens. For cheap-tier models, it's significantly cheaper than GPT-4o Mini and Claude Haiku.

Is Claude more expensive than GPT-4o?

At list price, yes — Claude Sonnet 4 ($3.00/$15.00) is slightly more expensive than GPT-4o ($2.50/$10.00). However, Claude's prompt caching (90% discount on repeated input) and often-shorter output lengths make it cost-competitive in practice.

Does Gemini have a context window advantage?

Yes. Gemini 1.5 Pro and Flash support up to 1M tokens context, far exceeding Claude's 200K and GPT-4o's 128K. This is a meaningful advantage for document-heavy applications.

How do I compare exact costs for my app?

Use the TokenRate calculator — enter your average input token count and output token count to see the exact monthly cost for each provider at your expected call volume.

Gemini vs Claude vs GPT: Full Cost Comparison for 2025

Three providers, three pricing philosophies

Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI have each converged on a three-tier model lineup (cheap/fast, balanced, frontier), but their pricing strategies differ. Google leads on raw price-per-token, especially at the cheap tier. Anthropic charges more at list price but offsets this with strong caching discounts. OpenAI sits in the middle and competes more on ecosystem and tooling than on price.

Here's how they stack up in 2025.

Cheap/fast tier: where Gemini dominates

Gemini 1.5 Flash: $0.075 input / $0.30 output per million tokens Gemini 2.0 Flash: $0.10 input / $0.40 output per million tokens GPT-4o Mini: $0.15 input / $0.60 output per million tokens Claude Haiku 4.5: $0.80 input / $4.00 output per million tokens

Gemini 1.5 Flash is the cheapest model at scale — up to 10× cheaper than Claude Haiku on input tokens. For high-volume classification, extraction, or simple Q&A tasks where quality requirements are modest, Gemini Flash is hard to beat on price.

Mid-tier: the workhorse models

GPT-4o: $2.50 input / $10.00 output per million tokens Gemini 1.5 Pro: $1.25 input / $5.00 output per million tokens Claude Sonnet 4: $3.00 input / $15.00 output per million tokens

Gemini 1.5 Pro is the cheapest mid-tier model at roughly half the price of GPT-4o. Claude Sonnet 4 is the most expensive at list price, but its prompt caching (90% discount on repeated context) and typically shorter outputs close the gap significantly for production workloads with large system prompts.

For most apps, GPT-4o and Claude Sonnet 4 are within 20% of each other in real-world cost. Gemini 1.5 Pro is meaningfully cheaper if quality is comparable for your use case.

Frontier tier: for when you need the best

Claude Opus 4: $15.00 input / $75.00 output per million tokens GPT-4.5 Turbo: $75.00 input / $150.00 output per million tokens Gemini Ultra 1.5: $7.00 input / $21.00 output per million tokens (with 2K context limit on cheap tier)

At the frontier tier, Claude Opus 4 is significantly cheaper than GPT-4.5 Turbo. Gemini Ultra sits between them. For reasoning-heavy tasks — complex analysis, multi-step coding, research — the frontier tier produces measurably better results, and Claude Opus 4 is the most cost-effective option.

Context window comparison

All three providers now offer large context windows for their main models:

Claude Sonnet 4 / Opus 4: 200K tokens GPT-4o: 128K tokens Gemini 1.5 Pro / Flash: 1M tokens (Gemini 1.5 Pro supports up to 2M in some configurations)

Gemini's 1M token context is unique in the industry and enables use cases impossible with other providers — like analyzing an entire codebase or a full book in a single call. However, latency and cost increase with context length, so this isn't a free lunch.

Real-world cost example: customer support chatbot

Assumptions: 5,000 input tokens per call (including system prompt + history), 500 output tokens, 100,000 calls/month.

Gemini 1.5 Flash: ($0.075 × 5M + $0.30 × 0.5M) = $375 + $150 = $525/month GPT-4o Mini: ($0.15 × 5M + $0.60 × 0.5M) = $750 + $300 = $1,050/month Claude Haiku 4.5: ($0.80 × 5M + $4.00 × 0.5M) = $4,000 + $2,000 = $6,000/month GPT-4o: ($2.50 × 5M + $10.00 × 0.5M) = $12,500 + $5,000 = $17,500/month Claude Sonnet 4: ($3.00 × 5M + $15.00 × 0.5M) = $15,000 + $7,500 = $22,500/month

With Claude prompt caching on the 4,000-token system prompt portion: the cached input cost drops to 10%, reducing Claude Sonnet 4 to approximately $9,000/month — much more competitive.

Which provider should you choose?

High volume, cost-sensitive tasks: Gemini Flash or GPT-4o Mini. Gemini is cheapest, GPT-4o Mini has the best ecosystem support.

Balanced quality and cost: GPT-4o or Claude Sonnet 4. They're comparable in quality; GPT-4o wins on list price, Claude Sonnet 4 wins when prompt caching applies.

Best reasoning, don't mind the cost: Claude Opus 4 for long contexts and complex reasoning. Avoid GPT-4.5 Turbo unless you have a specific reason — it's 5× more expensive.

Document-heavy use cases (1M+ tokens): Gemini 1.5 Pro is the only option with a context window this large.

Use the TokenRate calculator to enter your actual token counts and get a precise cost comparison for your workload.