Prices as of Oct 29, 2026

Which AI model for a customer support chatbot?

Short answers to customer questions around the clock, on WhatsApp, a website or an app. Volume is high and every second of waiting counts.

What matters for this task

  • Low latency: customers wait for each reply
  • A low price per request at high volume
  • A cached system prompt holding your policies and FAQ

Typical workload

3,000 requests/day · 2K in · 250 out · 60% cached

Adjust in the cost calculator

Shortlist

8 models meet the requirements, ranked by monthly cost for this workload.

ModelClassContextImagesInput $/1MOutput $/1MMonthly
DeepSeek V4 Flash Lowest cost Budget 1M ? $0.14 $0.28 $17
Claude Haiku 5.5 Fast 1M ✓ $0.10 $0.50 $20
GPT-6 Luna Fast 1.05M ? $0.10 $0.50 $20
Llama 4 Maverick Mid 524K ? $0.19 $0.65 $48
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite Budget ? ? $0.30 $2.50 $81
Qwen3.8-27B Mid 262K ✓ $0.40 $3.00 $140
Gemini 3.8 Flash Promo Workhorse 1M ✓ $0.75 $3.75 $146
GPT-6.1 Terra Mid 1.05M ? $1.00 $5.00 $190

Quality tests

Our side-by-side tests for this task are in progress. Until they are published, run 10 to 20 of your own real examples on two or three candidates before you choose.

Independent leaderboards: LMArena · Artificial Analysis

How this list is built: models in the classes suited to the task that meet its hard requirements (image input, context size, open weights), ranked by price. A lower price does not mean better quality.