You are probably overpaying for intelligence

Abstract The leading AI models keep getting more expensive, but are they worth it? I benchmarked dozens of LLMs across coding and general reasoning tasks, then mapped their performance against API pricing. The results are striking: a handful of models—most notably DeepSeek V3.2 and Minimax 2.5—deliver 85–95% of frontier performance at a fraction of the cost. Meanwhile, premium models like Claude…