Best Copilot Alternatives
OpenAI makes excellent AI models, but it isn't the right fit for every situation. Some developers find OpenAI's pricing hard to justify at scale—top-tier models run up to $15/MTok on output. Others need capabilities OpenAI doesn't prioritize: longer context windows, multimodal inputs beyond text and images, or open-weight models they can self-host. Privacy-conscious teams may prefer providers with different data handling commitments. And sometimes a competing model simply scores higher on the specific tasks that matter to your workflow. Across our 52-model benchmark suite (12 tests, scored 1–5), several non-OpenAI models match or exceed OpenAI's top scores—at the same price or less. This page ranks the strongest alternatives by overall benchmark performance, then by output cost within tied score tiers.
Pricing vs Performance
Output cost per million tokens (log scale) vs average score across our 12 internal benchmarks
anthropic
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Pricing
Input
$3.00/MTok
Output
$15.00/MTok
modelpicker.net
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores 4.67/5 on our benchmarks—tied with GPT-5.2 for the top average across all 52 models we tested. It earns perfect 5/5 scores on tool calling, agentic planning, strategic analysis, creative problem solving, faithfulness, multilingual, long context, and persona consistency. Crucially, it scores 5/5 on safety calibration, where most models score 1–2. On third-party benchmarks, it scores 75.2% on SWE-bench Verified and 85.8% on AIME 2025 (Epoch AI), placing it among the top coding and reasoning models by those external measures. Output cost is $15/MTok—the same as GPT-5.4—but it outscores GPT-5.4 (4.58) by a slim margin in our testing.
anthropic
Claude Opus 4.6
Pricing
Input
$5.00/MTok
Output
$25.00/MTok
modelpicker.net
Claude Opus 4.6
Claude Opus 4.6 averages 4.58/5 in our testing, scoring 5/5 on strategic analysis, creative problem solving, agentic planning, tool calling, persona consistency, multilingual, long context, and faithfulness—and 5/5 on safety calibration. On third-party benchmarks, it scores 78.7% on SWE-bench Verified and 94.4% on AIME 2025 (Epoch AI). The SWE-bench score is the strongest of any model in our dataset with that external result, making it the leading choice for complex software engineering tasks by that measure. At $25/MTok output, it's the most expensive model in our dataset.
Gemini 3 Flash Preview
Pricing
Input
$0.500/MTok
Output
$3.00/MTok
modelpicker.net
Gemini 3 Flash Preview
Gemini 3 Flash Preview averages 4.5/5 in our testing—matching GPT-5's score while costing only $3/MTok on output versus GPT-5's $10/MTok. It earns 5/5 on tool calling, long context, structured output, strategic analysis, multilingual, creative problem solving, agentic planning, faithfulness, and persona consistency. On third-party benchmarks, it scores 75.4% on SWE-bench Verified and 92.8% on AIME 2025 (Epoch AI), competitive with models costing three times as much. The multimodal capability (text, image, file, audio, video input) is broader than any OpenAI model in our dataset.
deepseek
R1 0528
Pricing
Input
$0.500/MTok
Output
$2.15/MTok
modelpicker.net
R1 0528
DeepSeek's R1 0528 averages 4.5/5 in our testing at just $2.15/MTok output—less than a quarter the cost of GPT-5 ($10/MTok) for the same average score. It scores 5/5 on persona consistency, faithfulness, long context, multilingual, tool calling, and agentic planning. On third-party benchmarks, it scores 96.6% on MATH Level 5 (Epoch AI), the highest math score of any model in our dataset with that result. Its 4/5 safety calibration score is notably better than most competing models outside the Claude family.
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview
Pricing
Input
$0.250/MTok
Output
$1.50/MTok
modelpicker.net
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview averages 4.42/5 in our testing at $1.50/MTok output, comfortably outscoring OpenAI's GPT-4.1 Mini (3.92/5) at comparable pricing. It earns 5/5 on safety calibration—one of only a few models in our dataset to do so—plus 5/5 on persona consistency, multilingual, structured output, and strategic analysis. The 1M token context window and multimodal support (text, image, file, audio, video) add practical flexibility.
xai
Grok 4.20
Pricing
Input
$2.00/MTok
Output
$6.00/MTok
modelpicker.net
Grok 4.20
Grok 4.20 averages 4.33/5 in our testing at $6/MTok output—meaningfully cheaper than GPT-5 ($10/MTok) while scoring at the same tier as GPT-5.4 Mini. It earns 5/5 on tool calling, faithfulness, multilingual, strategic analysis, persona consistency, structured output, and long context. The 2M token context window is the largest of any model in our dataset, making it a standout for applications requiring massive context.
mistral
Mistral Medium 3.1
Pricing
Input
$0.400/MTok
Output
$2.00/MTok
modelpicker.net
Mistral Medium 3.1
Mistral Medium 3.1 averages 4.25/5 in our tests at $2/MTok output—tied with OpenAI's o3 and GPT-4.1 on average score but at a fraction of their $8/MTok output cost. It earns 5/5 on multilingual, strategic analysis, long context, agentic planning, constrained rewriting, and persona consistency. The constrained rewriting score of 5/5 is notably higher than most models in our dataset, making it a strong choice for editing and reformatting tasks.
deepseek
DeepSeek V3.2
Pricing
Input
$0.260/MTok
Output
$0.380/MTok
modelpicker.net
DeepSeek V3.2
DeepSeek V3.2 averages 4.25/5 in our testing at just $0.38/MTok output—about 3% the cost of GPT-5 ($10/MTok) for equivalent average benchmark scores. It earns 5/5 on structured output, long context, persona consistency, multilingual, strategic analysis, faithfulness, and agentic planning. At this price point it dramatically undercuts every OpenAI model with a comparable average score.
Budget Alternatives
For teams running high token volumes, these alternatives deliver strong benchmark scores under $1/MTok on output:
Gemma 4 26B A4B ($0.35/MTok output, 4.25/5 avg): Scores 5/5 on structured output, faithfulness, multilingual, long context, and persona consistency in our tests. At $0.35/MTok it undercuts GPT-5 Nano ($0.40/MTok) and scores higher. The MoE architecture (3.8B active parameters out of 25.2B total) makes inference efficient. Supports text, image, and video input with a 262K context window. Tradeoff: 1/5 on safety calibration.
DeepSeek V3.2 ($0.38/MTok output, 4.25/5 avg): Detailed above in top picks. At $0.38/MTok it's one of the highest-scoring models per dollar in our dataset, matching or beating OpenAI models costing 26x more.
Grok 4.1 Fast ($0.50/MTok output, 4.25/5 avg): Scores 5/5 on long context, persona consistency, structured output, faithfulness, and multilingual in our tests. The 2M token context window at $0.50/MTok is exceptional value for long-document applications. Reasoning can be toggled on or off.
Grok 3 Mini ($0.50/MTok output, 3.92/5 avg): Reasoning model with visible thinking traces at $0.50/MTok. Scores 5/5 on tool calling, persona consistency, faithfulness, and long context in our tests. A capable budget reasoning option.
DeepSeek V3.1 ($0.75/MTok output, 3.92/5 avg): Scores 5/5 on faithfulness, structured output, long context, and persona consistency. Hybrid reasoning model supporting both thinking and non-thinking modes at low cost.
Mistral Small 4 ($0.60/MTok output, 3.83/5 avg): Scores 5/5 on structured output, multilingual, and persona consistency. Text and image input. Strong structured data and multilingual use case at low cost.
All of these undercut OpenAI's cheapest model with benchmark data (GPT-5 Nano at $0.40/MTok, 4.0/5 avg) on price, and several match or exceed it on score.
Bottom Line
If you want the best overall quality and strong safety guarantees, switch to Claude Sonnet 4.6 (4.67/5, $15/MTok)—it matches OpenAI's top score in our testing with superior safety calibration. If you want top-tier reasoning at dramatically lower cost, R1 0528 (4.5/5, $2.15/MTok) is the standout value pick, with the highest MATH Level 5 score in our dataset (96.6%, Epoch AI). If you want broad multimodal capability at mid-tier pricing, Gemini 3 Flash Preview (4.5/5, $3/MTok) supports audio and video input that no OpenAI model in our dataset offers. If you need the absolute lowest cost without sacrificing average benchmark score, DeepSeek V3.2 (4.25/5, $0.38/MTok) matches o3 and GPT-4.1's average score at roughly 5% of their output cost. If safety calibration is a hard requirement alongside budget efficiency, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview (4.42/5, $1.50/MTok) is the only sub-$2 model in our dataset to score 5/5 on safety calibration.
How We Test
We test every model against our 12-benchmark suite covering tool calling, agentic planning, creative problem solving, safety calibration, and more. Each test is scored 1–5 by an LLM judge. Read our full methodology.