1. Price-to-Performance Ratio Explained
We define the Price-to-Performance Ratio as a model's benchmark score (MMLU) divided by its blended cost per million tokens. This highlights models that punch above their weight class financially.
2. Flagship Models vs. Budget Models
Flagship models (Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-4o) score high (88%+ MMLU) but cost $3.00 to $5.00 per blended million tokens. Budget models (GPT-4o-mini, Gemini 1.5 Flash) score ~82% MMLU but cost under $0.30 per million tokens. For 80% of routine workflows, budget models offer 10x superior cost-efficiency.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most cost-effective model for coding?
Claude 3.5 Sonnet is the gold standard for complex coding, but for simple script edits, GPT-4o-mini offers excellent accuracy at 5% of the cost.
How does DeepSeek V3 fit in price-to-performance?
DeepSeek V3 achieves scores comparable to GPT-4o while costing only 10% of OpenAI's rate, currently representing the highest price-to-performance ratio in the industry.