/best/studentsupdated May 202686 models evaluated
Best AI for students
Homework help, essay writing, exam prep, and learning assistance.
The student use case is unusual because cost dominates everything. Students don't have API budgets. They need the best free or near-free model that can explain concepts clearly, help with math, and assist with writing — without doing the work for them.
What matters: math reasoning (for STEM homework), writing quality (for essays and reports), safety calibration (models shouldn't write entire essays verbatim — they should teach), and cost. Free-tier availability is the single biggest filter.
Our students rank weights writing (1.5×), math (1.5×), safety calibration (1×), and reasoning (1×). The safety weight is intentional — a model that does the student's work without teaching is a bad study tool, even if it produces correct output.
Full rankings
All 86 models, scored for students
| # | Model | Provider | Task score | $/in | $/out | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | DeepSeek V4 Flash | DDeepSeek | 5.00/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.200 | 1.0M |
| 02 | MiMo-V2.5 | XXiaomi | 5.00/5.0 | $0.140 | $0.280 | 1.0M |
| 03 | DeepSeek V4 Pro | DDeepSeek | 5.00/5.0 | $0.435 | $0.870 | 1.0M |
| 04 | MiMo-V2.5-Pro | XXiaomi | 5.00/5.0 | $0.435 | $0.870 | 1.0M |
| 05 | Qwen: Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | QQwen | 5.00/5.0 | $0.300 | $1.80 | 1M |
| 06 | R1 | DDeepSeek | 5.00/5.0 | $0.700 | $2.50 | 164K |
| 07 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | GGoogle | 5.00/5.0 | $0.500 | $3.00 | 1.0M |
| 08 | Qwen: Qwen3.6 27B | QQwen | 5.00/5.0 | $0.290 | $3.20 | 262K |
| 09 | MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 | MMoonshotAI | 5.00/5.0 | $0.730 | $3.49 | 262K |
| 10 | Qwen 3.7 Max | QQwen | 5.00/5.0 | $1.25 | $3.75 | 1M |
| 11 | Qwen: Qwen3.6 Max Preview | QQwen | 5.00/5.0 | $1.04 | $6.24 | 262K |
| 12 | Gemini 3.5 Flash | GGoogle | 5.00/5.0 | $1.50 | $9.00 | 1.0M |
| 13 | Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | GGoogle | 5.00/5.0 | $2.00 | $12.00 | 1.0M |
| 14 | GPT-5.2 | OOpenAI | 5.00/5.0 | $1.75 | $14.00 | 400K |
| 15 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $3.00 | $15.00 | 1M |
| 16 | Claude Opus 4.7 | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $5.00 | $25.00 | 1M |
| 17 | Claude Opus 4.6 | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $5.00 | $25.00 | 1M |
| 18 | Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $5.00 | $25.00 | 1M |
| 19 | Qwen: Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507 | QQwen | 4.67/5.0 | $0.071 | $0.100 | 262K |
| 20 | OpenAI: gpt-oss-120b | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $0.039 | $0.180 | 131K |
| 21 | Qwen: Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507 | QQwen | 4.67/5.0 | $0.090 | $0.300 | 262K |
| 22 | Xiaomi: MiMo-V2-Flash | XXiaomi | 4.67/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.300 | 262K |
| 23 | Gemma 4 26B A4B | GGoogle | 4.67/5.0 | $0.060 | $0.330 | 262K |
| 24 | Gemma 4 31B | GGoogle | 4.67/5.0 | $0.120 | $0.370 | 262K |
| 25 | GLM-4.7 Flash | ZZhipu AI | 4.67/5.0 | $0.060 | $0.400 | 203K |
| 26 | DeepSeek V3.2 | DDeepSeek | 4.67/5.0 | $0.252 | $0.378 | 131K |
| 27 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Super | NNVIDIA | 4.67/5.0 | $0.090 | $0.450 | 1M |
| 28 | Grok 4.1 Fast | XXAI | 4.67/5.0 | $0.200 | $0.500 | 2M |
| 29 | DeepSeek V3.1 | DDeepSeek | 4.67/5.0 | $0.210 | $0.790 | 164K |
| 30 | Qwen: Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | QQwen | 4.67/5.0 | $0.139 | $1.00 | 262K |
| 31 | Qwen: Qwen3.6 35B A3B | QQwen | 4.67/5.0 | $0.140 | $1.00 | 262K |
| 32 | Qwen: Qwen3.6 Flash | QQwen | 4.67/5.0 | $0.188 | $1.13 | 1M |
| 33 | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview | GGoogle | 4.67/5.0 | $0.250 | $1.50 | 1.0M |
| 34 | GLM-4.7 | ZZhipu AI | 4.67/5.0 | $0.400 | $1.75 | 203K |
| 35 | Qwen: Qwen3.6 Plus | QQwen | 4.67/5.0 | $0.325 | $1.95 | 1M |
| 36 | GPT-5 Mini | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $0.250 | $2.00 | 400K |
| 37 | Xiaomi: MiMo-V2-Omni | XXiaomi | 4.67/5.0 | $0.400 | $2.00 | 262K |
| 38 | R1 0528 | DDeepSeek | 4.67/5.0 | $0.500 | $2.15 | 164K |
| 39 | xAI: Grok Build 0.1 | XXAI | 4.67/5.0 | $1.00 | $2.00 | 256K |
| 40 | Grok 4.3 | XXAI | 4.67/5.0 | $1.25 | $2.50 | 1M |
| 41 | Grok 4.20 | XXAI | 4.67/5.0 | $1.25 | $2.50 | 2M |
| 42 | Xiaomi: MiMo-V2-Pro | XXiaomi | 4.67/5.0 | $1.00 | $3.00 | 1.0M |
| 43 | GPT-5.4 Mini | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $0.750 | $4.50 | 400K |
| 44 | o4 Mini | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $1.10 | $4.40 | 200K |
| 45 | Claude Haiku 4.5 | AAnthropic | 4.67/5.0 | $1.00 | $5.00 | 200K |
| 46 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | MMistral | 4.67/5.0 | $1.50 | $7.50 | 262K |
| 47 | o3 | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $2.00 | $8.00 | 200K |
| 48 | GPT-5 | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $1.25 | $10.00 | 400K |
| 49 | Gemini 2.5 Pro | GGoogle | 4.67/5.0 | $1.25 | $10.00 | 1.0M |
| 50 | GPT-5.1 | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $1.25 | $10.00 | 400K |
| 51 | GPT-5.4 | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $2.50 | $15.00 | 1.1M |
| 52 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | NNVIDIA | 4.33/5.0 | $0.050 | $0.200 | 262K |
| 53 | GPT-5.4 Nano | OOpenAI | 4.33/5.0 | $0.200 | $1.25 | 400K |
| 54 | Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | GGoogle | 4.33/5.0 | $0.250 | $1.50 | 1.0M |
| 55 | GPT-4.1 | OOpenAI | 4.33/5.0 | $2.00 | $8.00 | 1.0M |
| 56 | Grok 4 | XXAI | 4.33/5.0 | $3.00 | $15.00 | 256K |
| 57 | Grok 3 | XXAI | 4.33/5.0 | $3.00 | $15.00 | 131K |
| 58 | GPT-5.5 | OOpenAI | 4.33/5.0 | $5.00 | $30.00 | 1.1M |
| 59 | Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B | QQwen | 4.00/5.0 | $0.040 | $0.150 | 262K |
| 60 | Ministral 3 14B 2512 | MMistral | 4.00/5.0 | $0.200 | $0.200 | 262K |
| 61 | Mistral Small 4 | MMistral | 4.00/5.0 | $0.150 | $0.600 | 262K |
| 62 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | DDeepSeek | 4.00/5.0 | $0.270 | $0.950 | 164K |
| 63 | Mistral Large 3 2512 | MMistral | 4.00/5.0 | $0.500 | $1.50 | 262K |
| 64 | Devstral 2 2512 | MMistral | 4.00/5.0 | $0.400 | $2.00 | 262K |
| 65 | Mistral Medium 3.1 | MMistral | 4.00/5.0 | $0.400 | $2.00 | 131K |
| 66 | OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b | OOpenAI | 3.67/5.0 | $0.030 | $0.140 | 131K |
| 67 | GPT-5 Nano | OOpenAI | 3.67/5.0 | $0.050 | $0.400 | 400K |
| 68 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | GGoogle | 3.67/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.400 | 1.0M |
| 69 | Grok 3 Mini | XXAI | 3.67/5.0 | $0.300 | $0.500 | 131K |
| 70 | GPT-4.1 Mini | OOpenAI | 3.67/5.0 | $0.400 | $1.60 | 1.0M |
| 71 | Gemini 2.5 Flash | GGoogle | 3.67/5.0 | $0.300 | $2.50 | 1.0M |
| 72 | Ministral 3 3B 2512 | MMistral | 3.33/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.100 | 131K |
| 73 | Ministral 3 8B 2512 | MMistral | 3.33/5.0 | $0.150 | $0.150 | 262K |
| 74 | Llama 3.3 70B Instruct | MMeta | 3.33/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.320 | 131K |
| 75 | Grok Code Fast 1 | XXAI | 3.33/5.0 | $0.200 | $1.50 | 256K |
| 76 | Llama 4 Scout | MMeta | 3.00/5.0 | $0.080 | $0.300 | 10M |
| 77 | GPT-4.1 Nano | OOpenAI | 3.00/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.400 | 1.0M |
| 78 | Llama 4 Maverick | MMeta | 3.00/5.0 | $0.150 | $0.600 | 1.0M |
| 79 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | MMistral | 3.00/5.0 | $0.351 | $0.555 | 128K |
| 80 | Codestral 2508 | MMistral | 3.00/5.0 | $0.300 | $0.900 | 256K |
| 81 | GPT-4o | OOpenAI | 3.00/5.0 | $2.50 | $10.00 | 128K |
| 82 | Mistral Small 3.2 24B | MMistral | 2.67/5.0 | $0.075 | $0.200 | 128K |
| 83 | Qwen: Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | QQwen | 2.67/5.0 | $0.070 | $0.270 | 160K |
| 84 | Devstral Small 1.1 | MMistral | 2.67/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.300 | 131K |
| 85 | Devstral Medium | MMistral | 2.67/5.0 | $0.400 | $2.00 | 131K |
| 86 | GPT-4o-mini | OOpenAI | 2.33/5.0 | $0.150 | $0.600 | 128K |
Pricing — top 5 for students
D
5.00/5.0
X
5.00/5.0
D
5.00/5.0
X
5.00/5.0
Q
5.00/5.0
The best AI for students changes every month.
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