Use Case

Best AI for Agents 2026 - Multi-Step Reasoning

Compare models for AI agent development. Tool use, multi-step reasoning, and autonomous task completion.

Input/Output Ratio
50% / 50%
Typical for this use case
Cheapest Option
$1.00
per 10M tokens/month
Top Pick
claude-sonnet-4.5
Quality + Value balanced

Cheapest Models for AI Agents & Orchestration

Based on 50% input / 50% output token ratio typical for this use case.

RankModelCost/10M tokensvs Best Quality
#1ministral-8bMistral$1.00-99%
#2ministral-14bMistral$1.50-98%
#3deepseek-chatDeepSeek$2.10-98%
#4gpt-4.1-nanoOpenAI$2.50-97%
#5gemini-2.5-flash-liteGoogle$2.50-97%

Key Considerations

  • *Tool/function calling support essential
  • *Reasoning models for complex planning
  • *Consider cost per agent run, not per token
  • *Fast models for interactive agents

Optimize Your Costs

Track every API call and get AI-powered recommendations to reduce costs by 20-40%.

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