Best LLMs for summarization
Docs, threads, transcripts, meeting notes. Every model in the catalog, ranked three ways and priced at a realistic 30M input / 3M output tokens a month for this task.
What the engine picks on the default cost/quality/speed mix before you touch a slider.
Top task score (94/100) at $225/mo for this volume.
The cheapest model that stays close to the leader on quality — 85/100 at $7.50/mo.
By quality
Highest task score first.
Best value
Most quality per dollar of monthly spend.
Cheapest
Lowest monthly cost at this volume.
Fit to your volume
The ranking above prices a typical month. Enter your own summarization volume and, if you like, a monthly ceiling — the picks re-rank as you type. No signup.
| Model | Quality | Per month | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5 nano OpenAI | 80 | $2.70 | 29.63 |
| Mistral Small 3.2 Mistral | 80 | $3.90 | 20.51 |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Google | 80 | $4.20 | 19.05 |
| Grok 4.1 Fast xAI | 85 | $7.50 | 11.33 |
| Qwen3 235B Alibaba (Qwen) | 85 | $9.24 | 9.20 |
| DeepSeek V3.2 DeepSeek | 86 | $9.66 | 8.90 |
| Llama 4 Maverick Meta | 84 | $10.7 | 7.89 |
| GPT-5 mini OpenAI | 86 | $13.5 | 6.37 |
Value = quality points per dollar of monthly spend at your volume. Quality scores are benchmark-informed estimates, not evals — validate on your own workload before migrating.
Price your own summarization volume
These rankings use a typical monthly volume. Plug in your real token counts and the free estimator re-ranks every model on cost and quality.
Open the estimatorEmbed the live pick
A self-updating SVG badge of the balanced pick for summarization. Drop it in a README or blog — it re-renders the day the catalog changes.
Best models for other tasks
Prices are list $/1M tokens, hand-maintained from public provider pricing. Quality scores are benchmark-informed 0-100 estimates, not evals — validate on your own workload before moving production traffic. Not affiliated with any model provider. Compare Claude Opus 4.5 vs Grok 4.1 Fast