Cheaper alternatives to Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 scores 1454 on the overall Arena and costs about $2,000.00/month at 100,000 calls (1,500 in / 500 out). Here are models that match or beat it on quality for less.
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | 1465 | $10.50 | $1,989.50/mo | DeepSeek |
| GLM-5.3-Flash | 1473 | $38.84 | $1,961.16/mo | Z.ai (Zhipu AI) |
| MiMo-V2.5-Pro | 1464 | $108.75 | $1,891.25/mo | Xiaomi |
| MiMo-V2.6-Pro | 1491 | $108.75 | $1,891.25/mo | Xiaomi |
| Qwen3.7 Plus | 1455 | $140.00 | $1,860.00/mo | Alibaba |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | 1480 | $300.00 | $1,700.00/mo | |
| Gemini 3.7 Flash | 1489 | $300.00 | $1,700.00/mo | |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | 1498 | $300.00 | $1,700.00/mo | |
| Kimi K2.6 | 1456 | $342.50 | $1,657.50/mo | Moonshot AI |
| GLM-5.3 | 1474 | $388.43 | $1,611.57/mo | Z.ai (Zhipu AI) |
| Muse Spark 1.1 | 1478 | $400.00 | $1,600.00/mo | Meta |
| Muse Spark 1.2 | 1483 | $400.00 | $1,600.00/mo | Meta |
Intelligence scores are community Arena ratings from LMArena / arena.ai, used under CC BY 4.0. Snapshot last refreshed 2 November 2026. Scores are a relative signal, not an absolute measure of capability. A Measured score was voted on directly; an Estimated score is inherited from an identical base model (a regional/creator-prefixed hosting duplicate). See our methodology.
FAQ
Is there a cheaper model as good as Claude Opus 4.8?
Yes. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash matches or beats Claude Opus 4.8 on the overall Arena leaderboard and costs about $10.50/month versus $2,000.00/month at a typical volume of 100,000 calls — saving roughly $1,989.50/month.
How is 'as good' defined?
We only list models with an overall Arena score at or above Claude Opus 4.8's (1454). Arena scores are community preference ratings, not a single benchmark — confirm the alternative on your own task before switching.
Cite / link to this page
You’re welcome to reference this page and its figures with attribution and a link back.
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