__jl__
Joined 11 years ago
Joined 11 years ago
Personally, I pretty much exclusively use claude for coding work (sorry!). Our application is running almost 100% on OpenAI API (except for some fallback models). It is the best API on the market. The models are excellent particularly for any application that is cost sensitive.
Many labs used increased thinking to boost benchmark scores and performance. Most of the Chinese models were doing that for a while. Google and Anthropic as well.
Not OpenAI. 5.6 already was much more token efficient than other models and Astra beats Sol in token efficiency by a wide margin.
Edit: Just to make the point: Astra (max) has the 2nd highest score and the third lowest output tokens (among the models shown by AA).
For our production app, OpenAI clearly is the best provider now. Their API is very reliable and has many nice features. The price-performance of the model lineup is incredible. We used open weights model via Fireworks for a long time (e.g. Kimi K2.5). Fireworks is a great provider but we still ran into issues here and there (Same with Anthropic and Google). OpenAI just works, is fast and in my view has a better price-performance ratio across almost all levels of intelligence.
Gemini 2.5 flash (27 score): $172 (1.0x)
Gemini 2.5 pro (35 score): $649 (3.8x)
Gemini 3.0 Flash (46 score): $278 (1.6x)
Gemini 3.5 Flash (55 score): $1,552 (9.0x or 2.4x compared to 2.5 pro)
This is a massive price increase... 5.6x compared to Gemini 3.0 Flash
But generally: These are not consumer facing products and I agree that someone who uses the API should be able to figure out the price point of different models.
OpenAI now has three price points: GPT 5.1, GPT 5.2 and now GPT 5.4. There version numbers jump across different model lines with codex at 5.3, what they now call instant also at 5.3.
Anthropic are really the only ones who managed to get this under control: Three models, priced at three different levels. New models are immediately available everywhere.
Google essentially only has Preview models! The last GA is 2.5. As a developer, I can either use an outdated model or have zero insurances that the model doesn't get discontinued within weeks.
Google has been discontinuing older models after several months of transition period so I would expect the same for the 2.5 models. But that process only starts when the release version of 3 models is out (pro and flash are in preview right now).
They are pushing the prices higher with each release though: API pricing is up to $0.5/M for input and $3/M for output
For comparison:
Gemini 3.0 Flash: $0.50/M for input and $3.00/M for output
Gemini 2.5 Flash: $0.30/M for input and $2.50/M for output
Gemini 2.0 Flash: $0.15/M for input and $0.60/M for output
Gemini 1.5 Flash: $0.075/M for input and $0.30/M for output (after price drop)
Gemini 3.0 Pro: $2.00/M for input and $12/M for output
Gemini 2.5 Pro: $1.25/M for input and $10/M for output
Gemini 1.5 Pro: $1.25/M for input and $5/M for output
I think image input pricing went up even more.
Correction: It is a preview model...