Cheapest good LLM for web design
- DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 leads
- $0.182
- models qualify
- 67
Output $/Mtok · read October 21
Cheapest output, $ per million tokens
- Mistral Nemo $0.03
- Gemma 3 4B $0.05
- S Llama 3 8B Lunaris $0.05
- Ling 3.0 Flash $0.063
- Mistral Small 3 $0.08
- Llama 3.1 8B Instruct $0.08
- gpt-oss-20b $0.09
- N Nex-N2.5-Mini $0.10
As of October 21, 2026, DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 is the cheapest model at or above the median Design Arena: websites result, at $0.182 per million output tokens, ahead of Xiaomi MiMo-V2.5 ($0.238) and Inception Mercury 3 ($0.35).
This list narrows the best LLM for web design ranking.
| Rank | Model | Output $/Mtok | Coding evidence | Design Arena: websites | Coding index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 DeepSeek | $0.182 | 1208 | 54.6 | |
| 2 | MiMo-V2.5 Xiaomi | $0.238 | 1266 | 34.0 | |
| 3 | Mercury 3 Inception | $0.35 | 1240 | Not benchmarked | |
| 4 | GPT-6 Luna OpenAI | $0.50 | 1272 | 71.4 | |
| 5 | GLM 5.3 Flash Z.ai | $0.50 | 1272 | 71.0 | |
| 6 | Claude Haiku 5.5 Anthropic | $0.50 | 1263 | 75.9 | |
| 7 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash DeepSeek | $0.525 | 1309 | 77.2 | |
| 8 | Hy3 Tencent | $0.528 | 1230 | 43.9 | |
| 9 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 DeepSeek | $0.60 | 1312 | 83.3 | |
| 10 | MiMo-V2.5-Pro Xiaomi | $0.609 | 1267 | 40.0 | |
| 11 | MiMo-V2.6-Pro Xiaomi | $0.87 | 1308 | 72.6 | |
| 12 | MiniMax M2.5 MiniMax | $0.95 | 1222 | 59.4 | |
| 13 | R Beam 1.0 501B A23B Reflection | $1.00 | 1253 | 33.8 | |
| 14 | MiniMax M3 MiniMax | $1.20 | 1257 | 57.8 | |
| 15 | GPT-5.6 Luna OpenAI | $1.20 | 1256 | 61.5 | |
| 16 | MiniMax M2.7 MiniMax | $1.20 | 1243 | 28.4 | |
| 17 | MiniMax M2.1 MiniMax | $1.20 | 1201 | Not benchmarked | |
| 18 | Qwen3.7 Plus Qwen | $1.28 | 1269 | Not benchmarked | |
| 19 | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 DeepSeek | $1.32 | 1238 | Not benchmarked | |
| 20 | GLM 5.3 Z.ai | $1.40 | 1295 | 73.1 |
How this list is built
Generated from the dataset on every refresh. Nobody picks the order by hand.
Models whose Design Arena: websites result is at or above 1201, the median of every model on that board, ordered by output price, cheapest first. Free listings are left out: they are a tariff, not a price.
- OpenRouter, fetched
- Design Arena, fetched