How Much Does LLM Classification at Volume Cost per Month?
At production volume (5,000,000 calls/month), the cheapest effective option is Amazon Nova Micro at $98.14/month. The most expensive frontier option, GPT-5.4 Pro, runs $93,720/month — Classification is the smallest per-call shape in this cluster, but volume is the entire story — a tiny per-call cost still adds up at millions of calls a month.
How much does classification at volume cost per month?
At production volume (5,000,000 calls/month), the cheapest effective option for classification at volume is Amazon Nova Micro at $98.14 per month, verbosity-adjusted rather than list price. The most expensive frontier model, GPT-5.4 Pro, runs $93,720 per month for the same workload.
Token shape
| Shape | tiny input in, single-label output out |
| Input / output tokens per call | 1K in / 0K out |
| Cacheable input | 40% |
| Batch-eligible | Yes |
Input is one short text plus a stable instruction/label-set prompt; output is a single label or short code. The instruction portion is highly cacheable, and this is the clearest batch-processing candidate in the cluster.
Volume
Ranked cost — Production volume (caching + batch applied where available)
| Model | Provider | List monthly | Effective monthly | Verbosity | Rank Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Nova Microbudget | Amazon | $101 | $66.64 | 0.76× | — |
| Llama 3.1 8Bbudgetlegacy | Groq | $133 | $65.58 | 0.77× | — |
| GPT-5 Nanobudgetlegacy | OpenAI | $165 | $120 | — | — |
| Amazon Nova Litebudget | Amazon | $174 | $118 | 0.92× | — |
| GPT-OSS 20Bbudget | Groq | $218 | $138 | 2.93× | — |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash Litebudgetlegacy | $290 | $200 | — | — | |
| Ministral 8Bbudget | Mistral | $390 | $194 | 0.93× | ▲1 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flashbudget | DeepSeek | $378 | $297 | 2.60× | ▼1 |
| Mistral Small 3.1budget | Mistral | $435 | $213 | 0.85× | ▲3 |
| GPT-4o Minibudgetlegacy | OpenAI | $435 | $300 | — | ▼1 |
| Grok-3 Minibudgetlegacy | xAI | $435 | $435 | — | ▼1 |
| GPT-OSS 120Bbudget | Groq | $435 | $242 | 1.83× | ▼1 |
| Llama 4 Maverickbudgetlegacy | Groq | $560 | $280 | — | — |
| GPT-5.4 Nanobudgetlegacy | OpenAI | $625 | $419 | 0.79× | ▲1 |
| GPT-5.6 Lunabudget | OpenAI | $620 | $440 | — | ▼1 |
Show all 63 models
| Gemini 3.1 Flash Litebudgetlegacy | $775 | $532 | 0.88× | ▲1 | |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash Litebudget | $775 | $550 | — | ▼1 | |
| Codestralbudget | Mistral | $840 | $411 | 0.79× | ▲1 |
| GPT-5 Minibudgetlegacy | OpenAI | $825 | $600 | — | ▼1 |
| Gemini 2.5 Flashbudgetlegacy | $1,000 | $730 | — | ▲1 | |
| GPT-OSS 120B (Cerebras)budget | Cerebras | $950 | $1,050 | 2.33× | ▼1 |
| Mistral Medium 3budget | Mistral | $1,200 | $584 | 0.84× | ▲1 |
| DeepSeek V4 Probudget | DeepSeek | $1,175 | $984 | 3.31× | ▼1 |
| Llama 3.3 70Bbudgetlegacy | Groq | $1,554 | $769 | 0.81× | — |
| GLM-5.1midlegacy | Z.ai | $1,720 | $1,720 | — | — |
| Qwen 3.8 30Bmid | Groq | $1,800 | $900 | — | — |
| Qwen 3.6 27Bmidlegacy | Groq | $1,800 | $900 | — | — |
| Qwen 3.7 Plusmid | Qwen | $2,200 | $2,200 | — | — |
| Amazon Nova Promid | Amazon | $2,320 | $1,600 | — | — |
| GPT-5.4 Minimidlegacy | OpenAI | $2,325 | $1,650 | — | — |
| Gemini 3.1 Flashmidlegacy | $2,325 | $1,650 | — | — | |
| Claude Haiku 4.5mid | Anthropic | $3,000 | $2,100 | — | — |
| o3-Minimidlegacy | OpenAI | $3,190 | $2,200 | — | — |
| Grok 4.3mid | xAI | $3,375 | $3,480 | 1.42× | — |
| GPT-5midlegacy | OpenAI | $4,125 | $3,000 | — | ▲1 |
| Qwen 3.8 Maxmid | Qwen | $4,640 | $4,640 | — | ▲1 |
| Qwen 3.7 Maxmid | Qwen | $4,640 | $4,640 | — | ▲1 |
| Gemini 3.6 Flashmid | $4,650 | $3,300 | — | ▲1 | |
| Gemini 3.5 Flashmidlegacy | $4,650 | $3,300 | — | ▲1 | |
| GLM-5.2mid | Z.ai | $3,940 | $5,203 | 3.87× | ▼5 |
| Grok-3midlegacy | xAI | $5,400 | $5,400 | — | — |
| Grok-4.20 Reasoningmid | xAI | $5,600 | $5,600 | — | — |
| Grok-4.20mid | xAI | $5,600 | $5,600 | — | — |
| Mistral Large 3mid | Mistral | $5,600 | $2,800 | — | — |
| Gemini 3.1 Promid | $6,200 | $3,956 | 0.63× | ▲3 | |
| GPT-4.1midlegacy | OpenAI | $5,800 | $4,000 | — | ▼1 |
| GPT-5.6 Terramid | OpenAI | $6,200 | $4,400 | — | — |
| GPT-4omidlegacy | OpenAI | $7,250 | $5,000 | — | ▲1 |
| GLM 4.7 (Cerebras)mid | Cerebras | $5,900 | $7,701 | 7.55× | ▼3 |
| GPT-5.4midlegacy | OpenAI | $7,750 | $5,500 | — | — |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6mid | Anthropic | $9,000 | $6,300 | — | — |
| Claude Sonnet 4.5midlegacy | Anthropic | $9,000 | $6,300 | — | — |
| Claude Sonnet 4midlegacy | Anthropic | $9,000 | $6,300 | — | — |
| Claude Opus 4.8mid | Anthropic | $15,000 | $10,400 | 0.96× | — |
| Claude Opus 4.7midlegacy | Anthropic | $15,000 | $10,500 | — | — |
| Claude Opus 4.6midlegacy | Anthropic | $15,000 | $10,500 | — | — |
| Claude Opus 4.5midlegacy | Anthropic | $15,000 | $10,500 | — | — |
| GPT-5.6 Solfrontier | OpenAI | $15,500 | $11,000 | — | — |
| GPT-4 Turbofrontierlegacy | OpenAI | $28,000 | $19,000 | — | — |
| Claude Fable 5frontier | Anthropic | $30,000 | $21,000 | — | — |
| Claude Opus 4.1frontierlegacy | Anthropic | $45,000 | $31,500 | — | — |
| Claude Opus 4frontierlegacy | Anthropic | $45,000 | $31,500 | — | — |
| GPT-5.4 Profrontierlegacy | OpenAI | $93,000 | $66,720 | 1.04× | — |
Prompt caching assumes a 90% saving on the cacheable share of input — a stated modelling assumption, providers publish 75-90% off. See the full formula and coverage disclosure →