Home/Use Cases/Research

Best LLM for Research

10 models ranked for research tasks. Sorted by benchmark quality score, with price as a secondary factor.

Best Quality
GPT-5.4
OpenAI
ELO 1420
Cheapest Option
Llama 4 Maverick
Meta
$0.15/1M/1M input

All Models for Research

#ModelProviderInput / 1MOutput / 1MELOFlags
🥇GPT-5.4OpenAI$2.50/1M$15.00/1M1420
🥈Claude Opus 4.7Anthropic$5.00/1M$25.00/1M1415
🥉Gemini 3.1 ProGoogle$2.00/1M$12.00/1M1410
4o3OpenAI$2.00/1M$8.00/1M1395
5Claude Sonnet 4.6Anthropic$3.00/1M$15.00/1M1390
6Gemini 2.5 ProGoogle$1.25/1M$10.00/1M1385
7DeepSeek V3.2 (Reasoner)DeepSeek$0.28/1M$0.42/1M1385
OSS
8Grok 4.20xAI$2.00/1M$6.00/1M1380
9Llama 4 MaverickMeta$0.15/1M$0.60/1M1350
OSS
10Grok 4.1 FastxAI$0.20/1M$0.50/1M1305

Why We Picked These Models

GPT-5.4
$2.50/1M/1MELO 1420

GPT-5. OpenAI flagship — top-tier reasoning, coding, and multimodal.

Claude Opus 4.7
$5.00/1M/1MELO 1415

Claude Opus 4. Step-change improvement in agentic coding over Opus 4.6.

Gemini 3.1 Pro
$2.00/1M/1MELO 1410

Gemini 3. Google's latest flagship with major reasoning improvements.

Compare Top Models

GPT-5.4 vs Claude Opus 4.7GPT-5.4 vs Gemini 3.1 ProGPT-5.4 vs o3GPT-5.4 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best LLM for research?

GPT-5.4 by OpenAI is rated as the best model for research with an ELO score of 1420. OpenAI flagship — top-tier reasoning, coding, and multimodal.

What is the cheapest LLM for research?

Llama 4 Maverick is the most affordable option for research at $0.15/1M per 1M input tokens.

Is there a free LLM for research?

No completely free models are listed for research, but Llama 4 Maverick start at very low prices.