Cheap & Fast LLM APIs
Small, fast language models for high-volume work: Claude Haiku, GPT-5.4 Mini and Nano, Gemini Flash and Flash-Lite, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, GLM 5.3 Flash, Qwen3.7 Flash and more.
All Cheap & Fast LLM APIs
Preview the output style, compare capabilities, then open any model for full specs, pricing, and a live Playground.
Claude Haiku 5.5
Claude Haiku 5.5 is Anthropic's small, fast model for high-volume, cost-sensitive work such as summarization, classification, compaction, subagents, and browser use. It succeeds Claude Haiku 4.5 with ...
Claude Haiku 4.5
Claude Haiku 4.5 is Anthropic’s fastest and most efficient model, delivering near-frontier intelligence at a fraction of the cost and latency of larger Claude models. Matching Claude Sonnet 4’s perfor...
GPT-5.4 Mini
GPT-5.4 mini is the smaller, faster tier of OpenAI's GPT-5.4 family, released in March 2026 with text and image input and text output. OpenAI describes it as its strongest mini model at release for co...
GPT-5.4 Nano
GPT-5.4 nano is the smallest and fastest tier of OpenAI's GPT-5.4 family, released in March 2026 with text and image input and text output. OpenAI recommends it for tasks where speed matters most, suc...
Gemini 3.8 Flash
Gemini 3.8 Flash is a Flash-tier reasoning model in Google's Gemini 3 series, released in September 2026 and described by Google as its most intelligent Flash model as of release. Google positions it ...
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is the low-latency, high-throughput tier of Google's Gemini 3.5 family, released in July 2026 and described by Google as its fastest 3.5-class model. It is optimized for subagent...
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is the smallest model in DeepSeek's V4.1 architecture family, released in September 2026 with native visual understanding. It is a 552B-parameter mixture-of-experts model using a C...
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Economy
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Economy is a lower-cost service tier of the October 17, 2026 snapshot of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, served through Volcengine Ark. It keeps the 1M-token context window, image input and r...
GLM 5.3 Flash
GLM-5.3-Flash is the first native multimodal model in Z.ai's GLM-5 series, a 320B-parameter mixture-of-experts model with 18B active parameters that combines sparse and linear attention to cut long-co...
GLM 5.3 FlashX
GLM-5.3-FlashX is the high-speed tier of Z.ai's GLM-5.3-Flash, documented together with Flash and delivering inference speeds of up to 200 tokens per second. It shares Flash's native multimodal design...
Qwen3.7 Flash
Qwen3.7 Flash is the Flash tier of Alibaba's Qwen3.7 series, a native vision-language reasoning model that accepts text, images and video, released in July 2026. Alibaba describes it as an upgrade ove...
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is the fast, cost-efficient tier of MiniMax's M3.1 generation, which MiniMax describes as an ultra-efficient open-weight model for everyday work. It is a multimodal coding model tha...
MiMo-V2.6-Flash
MiMo-V2.6-Flash is the efficiency tier of Xiaomi's open-source MiMo-V2.6 series, released in September 2026 as a natively omni-modal reasoning model that takes text, image, video and audio input and r...
Model lineup
Context window and positioning from each provider.
| Model | Context | Positioning |
|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.4 Mini | 400K | GPT-5.4 mini is the smaller, faster tier of OpenAI's GPT-5.4 family, released in March 2026 with text and image input and text output |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | 1049K | Gemini 3.8 Flash is a Flash-tier reasoning model in Google's Gemini 3 series, released in September 2026 and described by Google as its most… |
| GLM 5.3 Flash | 1049K | GLM-5.3-Flash is the first native multimodal model in Z.ai's GLM-5 series, a 320B-parameter mixture-of-experts model with 18B active parameters that… |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 200K | Claude Haiku 4.5 is Anthropic’s fastest and most efficient model, delivering near-frontier intelligence at a fraction of the cost and latency of… |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | 1049K | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is the low-latency, high-throughput tier of Google's Gemini 3.5 family, released in July 2026 and described by Google as its… |
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | 1049K | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is the smallest model in DeepSeek's V4.1 architecture family, released in September 2026 with native visual understanding |
| Qwen3.7 Flash | 1000K | Qwen3.7 Flash is the Flash tier of Alibaba's Qwen3.7 series, a native vision-language reasoning model that accepts text, images and video, released… |
| GLM 5.3 FlashX | 1049K | GLM-5.3-FlashX is the high-speed tier of Z.ai's GLM-5.3-Flash, documented together with Flash and delivering inference speeds of up to 200 tokens… |
| MiMo-V2.6-Flash | 1050K | MiMo-V2.6-Flash is the efficiency tier of Xiaomi's open-source MiMo-V2.6 series, released in September 2026 as a natively omni-modal reasoning model… |
| GPT-5.4 Nano | 400K | GPT-5.4 nano is the smallest and fastest tier of OpenAI's GPT-5.4 family, released in March 2026 with text and image input and text output |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 | 1000K | Claude Haiku 5.5 is Anthropic's small, fast model for high-volume, cost-sensitive work such as summarization, classification, compaction, subagents,… |
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Economy | 1049K | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Economy is a lower-cost service tier of the October 17, 2026 snapshot of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, served through Volcengine Ark |
Models for volume and latency
These are the small and Flash tiers from each major provider. Use them for classification, extraction, summarisation, routing, sub-agents and any job that runs many times.
- Anthropic: Claude Haiku 5.5 and 4.5.
- OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini and Nano.
- Google: Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.5 Flash-Lite.
- Chinese labs: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Flash Economy, GLM 5.3 Flash and FlashX, Qwen3.7 Flash, MiniMax M3.1 Flash, MiMo V2.6 Flash.
For the hardest tasks, see Best LLMs. All models use the OpenAI-compatible POST /v1/chat/completions.
Start using Cheap & Fast LLM APIs on SandBase
Switch models by changing one field.
- 01
Create an API key
Sign in to the SandBase Console and create a key on the API Keys page. Keep it in an environment variable and never commit it to source control.
TERMINALexport SANDBASE_API_KEY="YOUR_SANDBASE_API_KEY" - 02
Send a chat request
Call the OpenAI-compatible Chat Completions API with model google/gemini-3.8-flash. Any OpenAI SDK works with base URL https://api.sandbase.ai/v1.
TERMINALcurl https://api.sandbase.ai/v1/chat/completions \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $SANDBASE_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"model": "google/gemini-3.8-flash", "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Explain vector databases in two sentences."}]}' - 03
Connect your AI tools
Use the same key in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other clients. See Use in AI tools for setup.
Questions, answered
Which is the cheapest?
Prices change; compare the input and output token prices on the cards. Qwen3.7 Flash and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Economy are among the lowest.
Are small models good enough?
For well-defined tasks such as classification and extraction, usually yes. Test on your own prompts before switching.
Do they support tool calling?
Yes. These models support function calling and structured output on SandBase.
Can I mix cheap and frontier models?
Yes. Route easy calls to a small model and hard ones to a frontier model; only the model field changes.
Build with Cheap & Fast LLM APIs.
One key, consistent APIs, and usage-based pricing across every model on this page.