/best/writingupdated July 2026120 models evaluated

Best AI for writing

Long-form drafting, rewriting, tone-matching, and editorial work.

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Writing is where models diverge most on taste. Two models can score identically on instruction-following and produce prose with completely different voice — one tight and readable, the other syrupy and evasive. Benchmark scores alone won't tell you which model matches your brand.

What matters: rhetorical range, willingness to cut, instruction adherence at the paragraph level, and refusal discipline. Good models don't moralize at the drop of a hat. We weight side-by-side human preference strongly here, along with tone consistency across long documents.

Our writing rank weights writing quality (2.5×), instruction-following (1.5×), and reasoning (0.5×). For editorial work at scale, instruction-following is the main differentiator — models that silently ignore style constraints waste editorial time.

Full rankings

All 120 models, scored for writing

weighted composite · lower-is-worse
#ModelProviderTask score$/in$/outContext
01OpenAI: GPT-5.6 LunaOOpenAI5.00/5.0$1.00$6.001.1M
02OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna ProOOpenAI5.00/5.0$1.00$6.001.1M
03OpenAI: GPT-5.6 SolOOpenAI5.00/5.0$5.00$30.001.1M
04OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Sol ProOOpenAI5.00/5.0$5.00$30.001.1M
05Anthropic: Claude Fable 5AAnthropic5.00/5.0$10.00$50.001M
06DeepSeek V4 FlashDDeepSeek4.50/5.0$0.077$0.1541.0M
07MiMo-V2.5XXiaomi4.50/5.0$0.105$0.2801.0M
08GLM-4.7 FlashZZhipu AI4.50/5.0$0.060$0.400203K
09NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 SuperNNVIDIA4.50/5.0$0.080$0.4501M
10DeepSeek V4 ProDDeepSeek4.50/5.0$0.435$0.8701.0M
11MiniMax: MiniMax M3MMinimax4.50/5.0$0.300$1.201.0M
12Qwen: Qwen3.7 PlusQQwen4.50/5.0$0.320$1.281M
13Z.ai: GLM 5.2ZZhipu AI4.50/5.0$0.406$1.281.0M
14Qwen: Qwen3.6 PlusQQwen4.50/5.0$0.325$1.951M
15Devstral 2 2512MMistral4.50/5.0$0.400$2.00262K
16R1 0528DDeepSeek4.50/5.0$0.500$2.15164K
17NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 UltraNNVIDIA4.50/5.0$0.500$2.201M
18Qwen: Qwen3.6 27BQQwen4.50/5.0$0.285$2.40262K
19R1DDeepSeek4.50/5.0$0.700$2.50164K
20Grok 4.3XXAI4.50/5.0$1.25$2.501M
21Gemini 3 Flash PreviewGGoogle4.50/5.0$0.500$3.001.0M
22MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6MMoonshotAI4.50/5.0$0.660$3.41262K
23Kimi K2.7 CodeMMoonshot AI4.50/5.0$0.720$3.50262K
24Qwen 3.7 MaxQQwen4.50/5.0$1.25$3.751M
25Qwen: Qwen3.6 Max PreviewQQwen4.50/5.0$1.04$6.24262K
26Grok 4.5XXAI4.50/5.0$2.00$6.00500K
27Gemini 3.5 FlashGGoogle4.50/5.0$1.50$9.001.0M
28Anthropic: Claude Sonnet 5AAnthropic4.50/5.0$2.00$10.001M
29Gemini 3.1 Pro PreviewGGoogle4.50/5.0$2.00$12.001.0M
30GPT-5.2OOpenAI4.50/5.0$1.75$14.00400K
31OpenAI: GPT-5.6 TerraOOpenAI4.50/5.0$2.50$15.001.1M
32OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Terra ProOOpenAI4.50/5.0$2.50$15.001.1M
33Claude Opus 4.7AAnthropic4.50/5.0$5.00$25.001M
34GPT-5.5OOpenAI4.50/5.0$5.00$30.001.1M
35Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 (Fast)AAnthropic4.50/5.0$10.00$50.001M
36Qwen: Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507QQwen4.00/5.0$0.090$0.100262K
37Ministral 3 3B 2512MMistral4.00/5.0$0.100$0.100131K
38Qwen: Qwen3.5-9BQQwen4.00/5.0$0.100$0.150262K
39OpenAI: gpt-oss-120bOOpenAI4.00/5.0$0.036$0.180131K
40Ministral 3 8B 2512MMistral4.00/5.0$0.150$0.150262K
41Qwen: Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507QQwen4.00/5.0$0.048$0.193131K
42Ministral 3 14B 2512MMistral4.00/5.0$0.200$0.200262K
43Gemma 4 31BGGoogle4.00/5.0$0.120$0.350262K
44DeepSeek V3.2DDeepSeek4.00/5.0$0.214$0.322131K
45Grok 4.1 FastXXAI4.00/5.0$0.200$0.5002M
46inclusionAI: Ling-2.6-1TIInclusionai4.00/5.0$0.075$0.625262K
47DeepSeek V3.1DDeepSeek4.00/5.0$0.210$0.790164K
48Arcee AI: Trinity Large ThinkingAArcee-ai4.00/5.0$0.250$0.800262K
49MiMo-V2.5-ProXXiaomi4.00/5.0$0.435$0.8701.0M
50Qwen: Qwen3.6 35B A3BQQwen4.00/5.0$0.140$1.00262K
51Qwen: Qwen3.5-35B-A3BQQwen4.00/5.0$0.140$1.00262K
52Nex-N2-ProNNex AGI4.00/5.0$0.250$1.00262K
53MiniMax: MiniMax M2MMinimax4.00/5.0$0.255$1.02205K
54Qwen: Qwen3.6 FlashQQwen4.00/5.0$0.188$1.131M
55GPT-5.4 NanoOOpenAI4.00/5.0$0.200$1.25400K
56Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite PreviewGGoogle4.00/5.0$0.250$1.501.0M
57Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash LiteGGoogle4.00/5.0$0.250$1.501.0M
58Qwen: Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20QQwen4.00/5.0$0.300$1.801M
59GPT-5 MiniOOpenAI4.00/5.0$0.250$2.00400K
60Mistral Medium 3.1MMistral4.00/5.0$0.400$2.00131K
61xAI: Grok Build 0.1XXAI4.00/5.0$1.00$2.00256K
62Gemini 2.5 FlashGGoogle4.00/5.0$0.300$2.501.0M
63Grok 4.20XXAI4.00/5.0$1.25$2.502M
64GPT-5.4 MiniOOpenAI4.00/5.0$0.750$4.50400K
65o4 MiniOOpenAI4.00/5.0$1.10$4.40200K
66Mistral Medium 3.5MMistral4.00/5.0$1.50$7.50262K
67GPT-4.1OOpenAI4.00/5.0$2.00$8.001.0M
68o3OOpenAI4.00/5.0$2.00$8.00200K
69GPT-5OOpenAI4.00/5.0$1.25$10.00400K
70Gemini 2.5 ProGGoogle4.00/5.0$1.25$10.001.0M
71GPT-5.1OOpenAI4.00/5.0$1.25$10.00400K
72GPT-5.4OOpenAI4.00/5.0$2.50$15.001.1M
73Claude Sonnet 4.6AAnthropic4.00/5.0$3.00$15.001M
74Claude Opus 4.6AAnthropic4.00/5.0$5.00$25.001M
75Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8AAnthropic4.00/5.0$5.00$25.001M
76inclusionAI: Ling-2.6-flashIInclusionai3.50/5.0$0.010$0.030262K
77IBM: Granite 4.1 8BIIbm-granite3.50/5.0$0.050$0.100131K
78Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1PPoolside3.50/5.0$0.060$0.120262K
79Xiaomi: MiMo-V2-FlashXXiaomi3.50/5.0$0.100$0.300262K
80StepFun: Step 3.5 FlashSStepfun3.50/5.0$0.100$0.300262K
81Gemma 4 26B A4B GGoogle3.50/5.0$0.060$0.330262K
82ByteDance Seed: Seed-2.0-MiniBBytedance-seed3.50/5.0$0.100$0.400262K
83Gemini 2.5 Flash LiteGGoogle3.50/5.0$0.100$0.4001.0M
84Grok 3 MiniXXAI3.50/5.0$0.300$0.500131K
85Mistral Small 4MMistral3.50/5.0$0.150$0.600262K
86inclusionAI: Ring-2.6-1TIInclusionai3.50/5.0$0.075$0.625262K
87Inception: Mercury 2IInception3.50/5.0$0.250$0.750128K
88MiniMax: MiniMax M2.5MMinimax3.50/5.0$0.150$0.900205K
89DeepSeek V3.1 TerminusDDeepSeek3.50/5.0$0.270$0.950164K
90MiniMax: MiniMax M2.7MMinimax3.50/5.0$0.240$0.960205K
91StepFun: Step 3.7 FlashSStepfun3.50/5.0$0.200$1.15256K
92Kwaipilot: KAT-Coder-Pro V2KKwaipilot3.50/5.0$0.300$1.20256K
93MiniMax: MiniMax M2.1MMinimax3.50/5.0$0.300$1.20205K
94GPT-4.1 MiniOOpenAI3.50/5.0$0.400$1.601.0M
95GLM-4.7ZZhipu AI3.50/5.0$0.400$1.75203K
96ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6BBytedance-seed3.50/5.0$0.250$2.00262K
97ByteDance Seed: Seed-2.0-LiteBBytedance-seed3.50/5.0$0.250$2.00262K
98Claude Haiku 4.5AAnthropic3.50/5.0$1.00$5.00200K
99Grok 4XXAI3.50/5.0$3.00$15.00256K
100OpenAI: gpt-oss-20bOOpenAI3.00/5.0$0.030$0.140131K
101Mistral Small 3.2 24BMMistral3.00/5.0$0.075$0.200128K
102ByteDance Seed: Seed 1.6 FlashBBytedance-seed3.00/5.0$0.075$0.300262K
103Llama 4 ScoutMMeta3.00/5.0$0.100$0.30010M
104Llama 3.3 70B InstructMMeta3.00/5.0$0.100$0.320131K
105GPT-5 NanoOOpenAI3.00/5.0$0.050$0.400400K
106GPT-4.1 NanoOOpenAI3.00/5.0$0.100$0.4001.0M
107Llama 4 MaverickMMeta3.00/5.0$0.150$0.6001.0M
108MiniMax: MiniMax-01MMinimax3.00/5.0$0.200$1.101.0M
109Grok Code Fast 1XXAI3.00/5.0$0.200$1.50256K
110Mistral Large 3 2512MMistral3.00/5.0$0.500$1.50262K
111MiniMax: MiniMax M1MMinimax3.00/5.0$0.400$2.201M
112GPT-4oOOpenAI3.00/5.0$2.50$10.00128K
113Grok 3XXAI3.00/5.0$3.00$15.00131K
114IBM: Granite 4.0 MicroIIbm-granite2.50/5.0$0.017$0.112131K
115NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3BNNVIDIA2.50/5.0$0.050$0.200262K
116Qwen: Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B InstructQQwen2.50/5.0$0.070$0.270160K
117GPT-4o-miniOOpenAI2.50/5.0$0.150$0.600128K
118Mistral Small 3.1 24BMMistral2.50/5.0$0.351$0.555128K
119Codestral 2508MMistral2.50/5.0$0.300$0.900256K
120MiniMax: MiniMax M2-herMMinimax1.50/5.0$0.300$1.2066K

Pricing — top 5 for writing

OOpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna
$4.75/MTok
5.00/5.0
OOpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna Pro
$4.75/MTok
5.00/5.0
OOpenAI: GPT-5.6 Sol
$23.75/MTok
5.00/5.0
OOpenAI: GPT-5.6 Sol Pro
$23.75/MTok
5.00/5.0
AAnthropic: Claude Fable 5
$40.00/MTok
5.00/5.0
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