AI MODEL GUIDE
Which AI model should
you actually use?
Plain-English breakdown of every major model — what it's good for, what it's not, and what it'll cost you as an Indian founder. No jargon.
→ Want a cost estimate for your specific use case? Try the calculatorQUICK REFERENCE — PICK BY TASK
Support chatbot
GPT-4o mini
Cheap, fast, handles FAQs well
Document summarisation
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Best at reading long content
Contract review
Claude Opus 4.6
High-stakes needs the best model
Classification / tagging
Claude Haiku 4.5
Repetitive = use cheapest
Content generation
GPT-4o
Quality + reasonable cost
Data extraction
DeepSeek V3
Structured task, lowest cost
Voice transcription
Whisper v3
Only model for audio
Long docs (50+ pages)
Gemini 1.5 Pro
Largest context window
EU data compliance
Mistral Large
GDPR, EU data residency
Privacy / self-host
Llama 3.1 70B
Open source, no data sharing
Budget
High volume, cost-sensitive tasks
Mid-tier
Production workloads, balanced cost & quality
Premium
High-stakes, complex reasoning
Specialist
Specific modality (audio, vision)
GPT-4oMid-tierOpenAI
Your reliable all-rounder
$2.50 / $10.00 per 1M tokens
~₹209 / ₹835 per 1M tokens
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GPT-4o miniBudgetOpenAI
10x cheaper than GPT-4o, 80% as capable
$0.15 / $0.60 per 1M tokens
~₹12.50 / ₹50 per 1M tokens
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GPT-5.5PremiumOpenAI
OpenAI's most powerful — use sparingly
$15.00 / $60.00 per 1M tokens
~₹1,252 / ₹5,010 per 1M tokens
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Claude Sonnet 4.6Mid-tierAnthropic
The best model for reading and writing long documents
$3.00 / $15.00 per 1M tokens
~₹250 / ₹1,252 per 1M tokens
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Claude Haiku 4.5BudgetAnthropic
Anthropic's fast, cheap workhorse
$0.80 / $4.00 per 1M tokens
~₹67 / ₹334 per 1M tokens
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Claude Opus 4.6PremiumAnthropic
Anthropic's most powerful — for high-stakes judgment
$15.00 / $75.00 per 1M tokens
~₹1,252 / ₹6,262 per 1M tokens
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Gemini 1.5 ProMid-tierGoogle
Best for very long documents and multimodal inputs
$3.50 / $10.50 per 1M tokens
~₹292 / ₹876 per 1M tokens
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Gemini 1.5 FlashBudgetGoogle
Google's cheapest option — surprisingly capable
$0.075 / $0.30 per 1M tokens
~₹6.25 / ₹25 per 1M tokens
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DeepSeek V3BudgetDeepSeek
The cheapest capable model — best for aggressive cost cutting
$0.27 / $1.10 per 1M tokens
~₹22.50 / ₹92 per 1M tokens
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Llama 3.1 70BBudgetMeta / Groq
Open source — run it yourself, keep your data in-house
$0.59 / $0.79 per 1M tokens
~₹49 / ₹66 per 1M tokens
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Mistral LargeMid-tierMistral
European model — strong compliance story
$3.00 / $9.00 per 1M tokens
~₹250 / ₹751 per 1M tokens
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Whisper v3SpecialistOpenAI
Speech-to-text specialist — the only model for voice
$0.006 per minute of audio
~₹0.50 per minute
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Pricing last verified May 2026