China's LLM market has exploded in 2026, with providers offering astonishingly low prices — some even free. Here's the definitive ranking of the cheapest AI APIs available, all accessible through a single OpenAI-compatible endpoint.
🏆 Price Ranking (Cheapest First)
| # | Model | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GLM-4-Flash | FREE | FREE | Prototyping, learning |
| 2 | DeepSeek V4 Flash | $0.001 | $0.001 | High-volume, simple tasks |
| 3 | Qwen3-Flash | $0.01 | $0.03 | Batch processing |
| 4 | Qwen-Plus | $0.10 | $0.10 | Balanced performance |
| 5 | GLM-4-Air | $0.10 | $0.10 | Chinese NLP |
| 6 | DeepSeek V4 | $0.27 | $1.10 | ⭐ Best overall value |
| 7 | DeepSeek R1 | $0.50 | $2.00 | Deep reasoning |
| 8 | Qwen-Max | $0.50 | $0.50 | Complex Chinese tasks |
| 9 | Kimi K3 | $0.50 | $2.00 | Long context (128K) |
🥇 Winner: DeepSeek V4 at $0.27/1M input tokens
For production workloads, DeepSeek V4 offers the best balance of price and performance. It matches or exceeds GPT-4o on most benchmarks at 89% lower cost. For non-critical tasks, DeepSeek V4 Flash at $0.001/1M is virtually free.
📊 China vs Western API Pricing
| Provider | Cheapest Model | Input $/1M | Flagship | Input $/1M |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇨🇳 AI Token Hub | GLM-4-Flash | FREE | DeepSeek V4 | $0.27 |
| 🇺🇸 OpenAI | GPT-4o-mini | $0.15 | GPT-4o | $2.50 |
| 🇺🇸 Anthropic | Haiku | $0.25 | Sonnet 4 | $3.00 |
| Gemini Flash | $0.075 | Gemini Pro | $1.25 |
🔌 One API, All Chinese Models
Instead of managing separate accounts for each Chinese LLM provider, access them all through one OpenAI-compatible endpoint:
# Access all Chinese LLMs through one endpoint
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
base_url="https://eaf9553505eeb8f5-115-190-107-107.serveousercontent.com/v1",
api_key="sk-ait-your-key",
)
# Try different models - just change the model name
for model in ["glm-4-flash", "deepseek-v4-flash", "qwen3-flash", "deepseek-v4"]:
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model=model,
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
)
print(f"{model}: {response.choices[0].message.content[:50]}...")
💡 Tips for Minimum Cost
- Use Flash models for classification, extraction, and simple Q&A
- Cache responses — many queries are repeated
- Batch requests — process multiple items in one call
- Set max_tokens — don't pay for unused output
- Route intelligently — use cheap models for easy tasks, expensive for hard ones
🚀 Get Started Free
Sign up and get 50,000 free tokens to test any of these models. No credit card required.