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llm-rate

Wednesday, 2 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

solar-pro4

Upstage · quality 1377.5 · $0.09/M blended

Best quality

gemini-3.8-flash-high

Google · quality 1495.2 · $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 solar-pro4valueUpstage 1377.5 524k $0.03 $0.12 405956.7
02 gemma-3n-e4b-itGoogle 1305.2 33k $0.06 $0.12 299249.6
03 gemma-3-12b-itGoogle 1334.0 131k $0.05 $0.15 278359.1
04 qwen3-30b-a3b-instruct-2507Alibaba 1383.5 262k $0.05 $0.19 256381.8
05 granite-4.2-8bIBM 1318.4 131k $0.10 $0.15 235827.3
06 gpt-5-nano-highOpenAI 1319.6 400k $0.03 $0.20 216676.5
07 nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-bf16Nvidia 1348.2 262k $0.06 $0.24 187216.0
08 mimo-v2.5Xiaomi 1427.5 1.1M $0.14 $0.28 179629.5
09 hy3Tencent 1439.9 262k $0.08 $0.33 172003.6
10 mimo-v2-flash (non-thinking)Xiaomi 1411.2 262k $0.10 $0.30 171339.1
11 step-3.5-flashStepFun 1403.8 262k $0.10 $0.30 168236.8
12 mimo-v2-flash (thinking)Xiaomi 1394.3 262k $0.10 $0.30 164301.9
13 gemini-3.8-flash-highqualityGoogle 1495.2 1.0M $0.75 $3.75 17376.5
14 gemini-3.7-flash-highGoogle 1491.4 1.0M $0.75 $3.75 17243.5
15 muse-spark-1.2 (xHigh)Meta 1488.8 $1.25 $4.25 14591.7

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.