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llm-rate

Saturday, 12 September 2026

In the last 24 hours we dispatched 1,556 tasks across 4 models. Here's what we picked, and why.

What we ran

An autonomous AI fleet, written in TypeScript, picks a model per task using a complexity router. No vibes, no PR team. This is the actual production output of that router:

ModelDispatchesShareWhy this one
01 claude-sonnet-4-6 1,066 68.5% implementation (standard)
02 claude-haiku-4-5 278 17.9% implementation (light)
03 gpt-5.4-mini 189 12.1% implementation (codex pool)
04 claude-opus-4-6 23 1.5% implementation (high complexity)

Window: 24h to 2026-05-16T00:00:00Z. Source: daemon routing logs. The router writes a decision per dispatch; we parsed 1556 of them.

If you don't have a router, here are the picks per common task

Filtered from arena.ai's leaderboard plus published API prices. Filter thresholds are listed under each tab; arguable. Treat this as a starting shortlist, not a verdict.

Fast, volume conversations. Latency-sensitive. Margin matters.

Best value

gemma-3n-e4b-it

Google · quality 1305.3 · $0.10/M blended

Best quality

gemini-3.8-flash-high

Google · quality 1494.4 · $2.85/M blended

Filter: Filtered to blended price ≤ $5 per million tokens and quality ≥ 1300 Arena. Ranked by value: most quality per dollar wins. 144 models survived.

Model Quality Ctx In /1M Out /1M Value ↓
01 gemma-3n-e4b-itvalueGoogle 1305.3 33k $0.06 $0.12 299277.8
02 gemma-3-12b-itGoogle 1334.1 131k $0.05 $0.15 278440.2
03 glm-5.3-flashZ.ai 1471.6 1.0M $0.07 $0.25 238805.9
04 gpt-5-nano-highOpenAI 1319.7 400k $0.03 $0.20 216760.9
05 nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-bf16Nvidia 1348.4 262k $0.06 $0.24 187325.3
06 mimo-v2.5Xiaomi 1427.2 1.1M $0.14 $0.28 179494.7
07 mimo-v2-flash (non-thinking)Xiaomi 1411.1 262k $0.10 $0.30 171301.6
08 step-3.5-flashStepFun 1403.7 262k $0.10 $0.30 168209.3
09 granite-4.2-8bIBM 1317.2 131k $0.06 $0.25 164355.8
10 mimo-v2-flash (thinking)Xiaomi 1394.3 262k $0.10 $0.30 164290.3
11 qwen3-30b-a3b-instruct-2507Alibaba 1383.6 262k $0.09 $0.30 161875.5
12 qwen3-32bAlibaba 1340.0 131k $0.08 $0.28 154543.3
13 gemini-3.8-flash-highqualityGoogle 1494.4 1.0M $0.75 $3.75 17346.8
14 gemini-3.7-flash-highGoogle 1491.0 1.0M $0.75 $3.75 17228.0
15 muse-spark-1.2 (xHigh)Meta 1489.3 $1.25 $4.25 14606.1

What this is, and isn't

Right now this is filter-on-arena.ai plus a public log of what we ran. Arena Elo measures pairwise human preference on short prompts. It does not measure: whether a model produces valid JSON under a schema, whether it hallucinates function names, whether it refuses queries it shouldn't, latency p99, rate-limit behaviour. Production teams need those signals.

We're building a benchmark runner — fixed prompt suites for RAG, structured extraction, code refactoring, function calling — run daily against every model. Raw inputs, outputs, judge rationale, costs published. When that lands, the "picks" section gets its real backing. Until then, the picks section is opinion with a citation, not measurement.