/best/studentsupdated October 2026164 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 164 models, scored for students
| # | Model | Provider | Task score | $/in | $/out | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Qwen: Qwen3.7 Flash | QQwen | 5.00/5.0 | $0.030 | $0.130 | 1M |
| 02 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | NNVIDIA | 5.00/5.0 | $0.070 | $0.200 | 262K |
| 03 | MiMo-V2.5 | XXiaomi | 5.00/5.0 | $0.140 | $0.280 | 1.1M |
| 04 | DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 | DDeepSeek | 5.00/5.0 | $0.016 | $0.640 | 1.0M |
| 05 | inclusionAI: Ling-2.6-1T | IInclusionai | 5.00/5.0 | $0.075 | $0.625 | 262K |
| 06 | Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash | ZZhipu AI | 5.00/5.0 | $0.026 | $0.900 | 1.0M |
| 07 | MiMo-V2.5-Pro | XXiaomi | 5.00/5.0 | $0.435 | $0.870 | 1.1M |
| 08 | OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna | OOpenAI | 5.00/5.0 | $0.200 | $1.20 | 1.1M |
| 09 | DeepSeek V4 Flash | DDeepSeek | 5.00/5.0 | $0.042 | $1.28 | 1.0M |
| 10 | MiniMax: MiniMax M3 | MMinimax | 5.00/5.0 | $0.300 | $1.20 | 1.0M |
| 11 | Meituan: LongCat 2.0 | MMeituan | 5.00/5.0 | $0.300 | $1.20 | 1.0M |
| 12 | Meta: Muse Glimmer 30B | MMeta | 5.00/5.0 | $0.300 | $1.20 | 131K |
| 13 | Thinking Machines: Inkling Small | TThinkingmachines | 5.00/5.0 | $0.450 | $1.20 | 524K |
| 14 | Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus | QQwen | 5.00/5.0 | $0.320 | $1.28 | 1M |
| 15 | AionLabs: Aion-2.0 | AAion-labs | 5.00/5.0 | $0.800 | $1.60 | 131K |
| 16 | Qwen: Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | QQwen | 5.00/5.0 | $0.300 | $1.80 | 1M |
| 17 | DeepSeek V4 Pro | DDeepSeek | 5.00/5.0 | $0.955 | $1.91 | 1.0M |
| 18 | Qwen: Qwen3.8 27B | QQwen | 5.00/5.0 | $0.040 | $2.30 | 1M |
| 19 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra | NNVIDIA | 5.00/5.0 | $0.600 | $2.40 | 262K |
| 20 | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | GGoogle | 5.00/5.0 | $0.300 | $2.50 | 1.0M |
| 21 | R1 | DDeepSeek | 5.00/5.0 | $0.700 | $2.50 | 64K |
| 22 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | GGoogle | 5.00/5.0 | $0.500 | $3.00 | 1.0M |
| 23 | Qwen: Qwen3.6 27B | QQwen | 5.00/5.0 | $0.320 | $3.20 | 262K |
| 24 | Kimi K2.7 Code | MMoonshot AI | 5.00/5.0 | $0.671 | $3.35 | 262K |
| 25 | MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 | MMoonshotAI | 5.00/5.0 | $0.650 | $3.41 | 262K |
| 26 | Google: Gemini 3.8 Flash | GGoogle | 5.00/5.0 | $0.750 | $3.75 | 1.0M |
| 27 | Google: Gemini 3.7 Flash | GGoogle | 5.00/5.0 | $0.750 | $3.75 | 1.0M |
| 28 | Gemini 3.6 Flash | GGoogle | 5.00/5.0 | $0.750 | $3.75 | 1.0M |
| 29 | Thinking Machines: Inkling | TThinkingmachines | 5.00/5.0 | $1.00 | $4.05 | 524K |
| 30 | DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 | DDeepSeek | 5.00/5.0 | $1.32 | $3.96 | 1.0M |
| 31 | Meta: Muse Spark 1.3 | MMeta | 5.00/5.0 | $1.25 | $4.25 | 1.0M |
| 32 | Meta: Muse Spark 1.2 | MMeta | 5.00/5.0 | $1.25 | $4.25 | 1.0M |
| 33 | Meta: Muse Spark 1.1 | MMeta | 5.00/5.0 | $1.25 | $4.25 | 1.0M |
| 34 | Z.ai: GLM 5.3 | ZZhipu AI | 5.00/5.0 | $0.079 | $4.80 | 1.0M |
| 35 | Qwen 3.7 Max | QQwen | 5.00/5.0 | $1.48 | $4.42 | 1M |
| 36 | OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna Pro | OOpenAI | 5.00/5.0 | $1.00 | $6.00 | 1.1M |
| 37 | Qwen: Qwen3.6 Max Preview | QQwen | 5.00/5.0 | $1.03 | $6.16 | 262K |
| 38 | Grok 4.5 | XXAI | 5.00/5.0 | $2.00 | $6.00 | 500K |
| 39 | Sakana: Fugu Max | SSakana | 5.00/5.0 | $2.00 | $6.00 | 1M |
| 40 | AionLabs: Aion-3.0 | AAion-labs | 5.00/5.0 | $3.00 | $6.00 | 131K |
| 41 | Z.ai: GLM 5.2 | ZZhipu AI | 5.00/5.0 | $0.060 | $7.00 | 1.0M |
| 42 | Gemini 3.5 Flash | GGoogle | 5.00/5.0 | $1.50 | $9.00 | 1.0M |
| 43 | Anthropic: Claude Sonnet 5 | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $2.00 | $10.00 | 1M |
| 44 | OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Sol | OOpenAI | 5.00/5.0 | $2.00 | $10.00 | 1.1M |
| 45 | Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | GGoogle | 5.00/5.0 | $2.00 | $12.00 | 1.0M |
| 46 | OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Terra | OOpenAI | 5.00/5.0 | $2.00 | $12.00 | 1.1M |
| 47 | MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 | MMoonshotAI | 5.00/5.0 | $0.730 | $13.50 | 1.0M |
| 48 | GPT-5.2 | OOpenAI | 5.00/5.0 | $1.75 | $14.00 | 400K |
| 49 | OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Terra Pro | OOpenAI | 5.00/5.0 | $2.50 | $15.00 | 1.1M |
| 50 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $3.00 | $15.00 | 1M |
| 51 | Claude Opus 5 | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $5.00 | $25.00 | 1M |
| 52 | Claude Opus 4.7 | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $5.00 | $25.00 | 1M |
| 53 | Claude Opus 4.6 | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $5.00 | $25.00 | 1M |
| 54 | Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $5.00 | $25.00 | 1M |
| 55 | OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Sol Pro | OOpenAI | 5.00/5.0 | $5.00 | $30.00 | 1.1M |
| 56 | Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 (Fast) | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $10.00 | $50.00 | 1M |
| 57 | Anthropic: Claude Fable 5 | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $10.00 | $50.00 | 1M |
| 58 | Claude Opus 5 (Fast) | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $10.00 | $50.00 | 1M |
| 59 | Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 | AAnthropic | 5.00/5.0 | $10.00 | $50.00 | 1M |
| 60 | inclusionAI: Ling 3.0 Flash VL | IInclusionai | 4.67/5.0 | $0.021 | $0.062 | 262K |
| 61 | Ling-3.0-flash | IInclusionai | 4.67/5.0 | $0.021 | $0.063 | 262K |
| 62 | Nex AGI: Nex-N2-Mini | NNex-agi | 4.67/5.0 | $0.025 | $0.100 | 262K |
| 63 | Inception: Mercury 2.5 Preview | IInception | 4.67/5.0 | $0.040 | $0.150 | 260K |
| 64 | Gemma 4 26B A4B | GGoogle | 4.67/5.0 | $0.090 | $0.300 | 262K |
| 65 | Xiaomi: MiMo-V2-Flash | XXiaomi | 4.67/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.300 | 262K |
| 66 | StepFun: Step 3.5 Flash | SStepfun | 4.67/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.300 | 262K |
| 67 | Qwen: Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507 | QQwen | 4.67/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.300 | 262K |
| 68 | Gemma 4 31B | GGoogle | 4.67/5.0 | $0.090 | $0.340 | 262K |
| 69 | Upstage: Solar Pro 4 | UUpstage | 4.67/5.0 | $0.090 | $0.360 | 524K |
| 70 | GLM-4.7 Flash | ZZhipu AI | 4.67/5.0 | $0.060 | $0.400 | 200K |
| 71 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Super | NNVIDIA | 4.67/5.0 | $0.080 | $0.450 | 262K |
| 72 | Grok 4.1 Fast | XXAI | 4.67/5.0 | $0.200 | $0.500 | 2M |
| 73 | Qwen: Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507 | QQwen | 4.67/5.0 | $0.090 | $0.550 | 262K |
| 74 | OpenAI: gpt-oss-120b | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $0.150 | $0.600 | 131K |
| 75 | Qwen: Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | QQwen | 4.67/5.0 | $0.080 | $0.750 | 262K |
| 76 | Inception: Mercury 2 | IInception | 4.67/5.0 | $0.250 | $0.750 | 128K |
| 77 | Arcee AI: Trinity Large Thinking | AArcee-ai | 4.67/5.0 | $0.250 | $0.800 | 262K |
| 78 | DeepSeek V3.2 | DDeepSeek | 4.67/5.0 | $0.259 | $0.800 | 164K |
| 79 | Qwen: Qwen3.6 35B A3B | QQwen | 4.67/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.950 | 262K |
| 80 | DeepSeek V3.1 | DDeepSeek | 4.67/5.0 | $0.250 | $0.950 | 164K |
| 81 | Nex-N2-Pro | NNex AGI | 4.67/5.0 | $0.250 | $1.00 | 262K |
| 82 | Qwen: Qwen3.6 Flash | QQwen | 4.67/5.0 | $0.188 | $1.13 | 1M |
| 83 | StepFun: Step 3.7 Flash | SStepfun | 4.67/5.0 | $0.200 | $1.15 | 262K |
| 84 | Kwaipilot: KAT-Coder-Pro V2 | KKwaipilot | 4.67/5.0 | $0.300 | $1.20 | 262K |
| 85 | MiniMax: MiniMax M2.7 | MMinimax | 4.67/5.0 | $0.300 | $1.20 | 205K |
| 86 | MiniMax: MiniMax M2 | MMinimax | 4.67/5.0 | $0.300 | $1.20 | 205K |
| 87 | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview | GGoogle | 4.67/5.0 | $0.250 | $1.50 | 1.0M |
| 88 | AionLabs: Aion-3.0-Mini | AAion-labs | 4.67/5.0 | $0.700 | $1.40 | 131K |
| 89 | Qwen: Qwen3.6 Plus | QQwen | 4.67/5.0 | $0.325 | $1.95 | 1M |
| 90 | GPT-5 Mini | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $0.250 | $2.00 | 400K |
| 91 | ByteDance Seed: Seed-2.0-Lite | BBytedance-seed | 4.67/5.0 | $0.250 | $2.00 | 262K |
| 92 | ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 | BBytedance-seed | 4.67/5.0 | $0.250 | $2.00 | 262K |
| 93 | R1 0528 | DDeepSeek | 4.67/5.0 | $0.500 | $2.15 | 164K |
| 94 | xAI: Grok Build 0.1 | XXAI | 4.67/5.0 | $1.00 | $2.00 | 256K |
| 95 | GLM-4.7 | ZZhipu AI | 4.67/5.0 | $0.600 | $2.20 | 205K |
| 96 | Grok 4.20 | XXAI | 4.67/5.0 | $1.25 | $2.50 | 2M |
| 97 | Grok 4.3 | XXAI | 4.67/5.0 | $1.25 | $2.50 | 1M |
| 98 | GPT-5.4 Mini | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $0.750 | $4.50 | 400K |
| 99 | o4 Mini | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $1.10 | $4.40 | 200K |
| 100 | Claude Haiku 4.5 | AAnthropic | 4.67/5.0 | $1.00 | $5.00 | 200K |
| 101 | Grok 4.6 | XXAI | 4.67/5.0 | $2.00 | $6.00 | 500K |
| 102 | Qwen: Qwen3.8 Max | QQwen | 4.67/5.0 | $2.00 | $6.00 | 1M |
| 103 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | MMistral | 4.67/5.0 | $1.50 | $7.50 | 262K |
| 104 | o3 | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $2.00 | $8.00 | 200K |
| 105 | GPT-5 | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $1.25 | $10.00 | 400K |
| 106 | Gemini 2.5 Pro | GGoogle | 4.67/5.0 | $1.25 | $10.00 | 1.0M |
| 107 | GPT-5.1 | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $1.25 | $10.00 | 400K |
| 108 | GPT-5.4 | OOpenAI | 4.67/5.0 | $2.50 | $15.00 | 1.1M |
| 109 | inclusionAI: Ling-2.6-flash | IInclusionai | 4.33/5.0 | $0.010 | $0.030 | 262K |
| 110 | Inception: Mercury 2.5 | IInception | 4.33/5.0 | $0.040 | $0.150 | 260K |
| 111 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | NNVIDIA | 4.33/5.0 | $0.060 | $0.240 | 262K |
| 112 | IBM: Granite 4.2 8B | IIbm-granite | 4.33/5.0 | $0.060 | $0.250 | 131K |
| 113 | Qwen: Qwen3.8 Flash | QQwen | 4.33/5.0 | $0.150 | $0.470 | 1M |
| 114 | KAT-Coder-Air V2.5 | KKwaipilot | 4.33/5.0 | $0.150 | $0.600 | 256K |
| 115 | inclusionAI: Ring-2.6-1T | IInclusionai | 4.33/5.0 | $0.075 | $0.625 | 262K |
| 116 | MiniMax: MiniMax M2.5 | MMinimax | 4.33/5.0 | $0.270 | $1.08 | 205K |
| 117 | GPT-5.4 Nano | OOpenAI | 4.33/5.0 | $0.200 | $1.25 | 400K |
| 118 | Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | GGoogle | 4.33/5.0 | $0.250 | $1.50 | 1.0M |
| 119 | MiniMax: MiniMax M1 | MMinimax | 4.33/5.0 | $0.550 | $2.20 | 1M |
| 120 | Seed 2.1 Turbo | BByteDance | 4.33/5.0 | $0.500 | $2.50 | 262K |
| 121 | ByteDance Seed: Seed-2.0-Code | BBytedance-seed | 4.33/5.0 | $0.500 | $3.00 | 262K |
| 122 | GPT-4.1 | OOpenAI | 4.33/5.0 | $2.00 | $8.00 | 1.0M |
| 123 | Grok 4 | XXAI | 4.33/5.0 | $3.00 | $15.00 | 256K |
| 124 | Grok 3 | XXAI | 4.33/5.0 | $3.00 | $15.00 | 131K |
| 125 | GPT-5.5 | OOpenAI | 4.33/5.0 | $5.00 | $30.00 | 1.1M |
| 126 | Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 | PPoolside | 4.00/5.0 | $0.060 | $0.120 | 262K |
| 127 | Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B | QQwen | 4.00/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.150 | 262K |
| 128 | Ministral 3 14B 2512 | MMistral | 4.00/5.0 | $0.200 | $0.200 | 262K |
| 129 | ByteDance Seed: Seed-2.0-Mini | BBytedance-seed | 4.00/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.400 | 262K |
| 130 | Mistral Small 4 | MMistral | 4.00/5.0 | $0.150 | $0.600 | 262K |
| 131 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | DDeepSeek | 4.00/5.0 | $0.270 | $1.00 | 164K |
| 132 | MiniMax: MiniMax M2.1 | MMinimax | 4.00/5.0 | $0.300 | $1.20 | 205K |
| 133 | Mistral Large 3 2512 | MMistral | 4.00/5.0 | $0.500 | $1.50 | 262K |
| 134 | Mistral Medium 3.1 | MMistral | 4.00/5.0 | $0.400 | $2.00 | 131K |
| 135 | Devstral 2 2512 | MMistral | 4.00/5.0 | $0.400 | $2.00 | 262K |
| 136 | OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b | OOpenAI | 3.67/5.0 | $0.018 | $0.090 | 131K |
| 137 | IBM: Granite 4.1 8B | IIbm-granite | 3.67/5.0 | $0.050 | $0.100 | 131K |
| 138 | Poolside Laguna S 2.1 | PPoolside | 3.67/5.0 | $0.090 | $0.180 | 1.0M |
| 139 | ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 Flash | BBytedance-seed | 3.67/5.0 | $0.075 | $0.300 | 262K |
| 140 | GPT-5 Nano | OOpenAI | 3.67/5.0 | $0.050 | $0.400 | 400K |
| 141 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | GGoogle | 3.67/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.400 | 1.0M |
| 142 | Grok 3 Mini | XXAI | 3.67/5.0 | $0.300 | $0.500 | 131K |
| 143 | Upstage: Solar Pro 3 | UUpstage | 3.67/5.0 | $0.150 | $0.600 | 131K |
| 144 | GPT-4.1 Mini | OOpenAI | 3.67/5.0 | $0.400 | $1.60 | 1.0M |
| 145 | Gemini 2.5 Flash | GGoogle | 3.67/5.0 | $0.300 | $2.50 | 1.0M |
| 146 | KAT-Coder-Pro V2.5 | KKwaipilot | 3.67/5.0 | $0.740 | $2.96 | 262K |
| 147 | Relace: Relace Search | RRelace | 3.67/5.0 | $1.00 | $3.00 | 256K |
| 148 | Ministral 3 3B 2512 | MMistral | 3.33/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.100 | 131K |
| 149 | Ministral 3 8B 2512 | MMistral | 3.33/5.0 | $0.150 | $0.150 | 262K |
| 150 | Llama 3.3 70B Instruct | MMeta | 3.33/5.0 | $0.590 | $0.790 | 131K |
| 151 | MiniMax: MiniMax-01 | MMinimax | 3.33/5.0 | $0.200 | $1.10 | 1.0M |
| 152 | Grok Code Fast 1 | XXAI | 3.33/5.0 | $0.200 | $1.50 | 256K |
| 153 | GPT-4.1 Nano | OOpenAI | 3.00/5.0 | $0.100 | $0.400 | 1.0M |
| 154 | Llama 4 Scout | MMeta | 3.00/5.0 | $0.180 | $0.590 | 1.3M |
| 155 | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | MMistral | 3.00/5.0 | $0.351 | $0.555 | 128K |
| 156 | Llama 4 Maverick | MMeta | 3.00/5.0 | $0.188 | $0.652 | 1.0M |
| 157 | Codestral 2508 | MMistral | 3.00/5.0 | $0.300 | $0.900 | 256K |
| 158 | GPT-4o | OOpenAI | 3.00/5.0 | $2.50 | $10.00 | 128K |
| 159 | Mistral Small 3.2 24B | MMistral | 2.67/5.0 | $0.094 | $0.250 | 256K |
| 160 | Qwen: Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | QQwen | 2.67/5.0 | $0.070 | $0.280 | 262K |
| 161 | MiniMax: MiniMax M2-her | MMinimax | 2.67/5.0 | $0.300 | $1.20 | 66K |
| 162 | GPT-4o-mini | OOpenAI | 2.33/5.0 | $0.150 | $0.600 | 128K |
| 163 | IBM: Granite 4.0 Micro | IIbm-granite | 2.00/5.0 | $0.017 | $0.112 | 131K |
| 164 | Sakana: Sakana Namazu | SSakana | 0.00/5.0 | $0.950 | $4.00 | 262K |
Pricing — top 5 for students
Q
5.00/5.0
N
5.00/5.0
X
5.00/5.0
D
5.00/5.0
I
5.00/5.0
The best AI for students changes every month.
We'll email you when rankings shift, new models hit the top 5, or pricing cuts reshuffle the value leaders.
Get notified when models change
Price drops, new models, benchmark updates. One email per change, no spam.