AIUpdateWatch Intelligence

AI prices and plans

Published prices stay in their source currency. Current promotions, consumer subscriptions, USD API prices and Chinese-model CNY prices are kept separate with effective dates, source validity and caveats visible.

Saturday complete daily edition: Saturday, August 22, 2026 · Data cutoff Aug 22, 2026, 9:15 AM (America/New_York)

Governed pricing intelligence

Pricing changes and source health

2 preserved editions from 2026-08-21 through 2026-08-22. Currencies and regions are never silently merged.

Current records2311 API · 8 plans
Commercial extras42 promotions · 2 free tiers
Currencies3CNY · Not separately published · USD
7-day events02/7 editions

No material pricing-field change was detected in the available seven-day window.

Open pricing history →

Current offers

Promotions and discounts

Open governed pricing history →
Microsoft

Microsoft 365 Copilot Business promotional pricing

First-year discount available through September 30, 2026

Microsoft lists promotional pricing for eligible Microsoft 365 Copilot Business plans and add-ons. Discount levels vary by selected plan.

Eligibility: Eligible Microsoft 365 business customers; annual commitment and other terms apply.

Open official promotion source (opens in a new tab)
Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 5 introductory API pricing

$2 input / $10 output per 1M tokens through August 31, 2026

Anthropic says standard pricing changes to $3 input and $15 output per million tokens after the introductory period.

Eligibility: Claude API usage under Anthropic’s published terms and regional availability.

Open official promotion source (opens in a new tab)

USD input + output comparison

USD per one million input tokens plus one million output tokens. This is not a projected bill.

ItemValue
GPT-5.6 Luna$7
Grok 4.5$8
GPT-5.6 Terra$17.50
GPT-5.6 Sol$35
Claude Fable 5$60

Why real cost differs

Actual bills depend on input/output mix, caching, tool charges, retries, batch processing, context length, taxes, region and currency conversion.

CNY prices are kept in a separate table. They are never converted without a timestamped exchange-rate source.

USD API price table

ModelInput / 1MOutput / 1MSimple total
GPT-5.6 Luna$1$6$7
Grok 4.5$2$6$8
GPT-5.6 Terra$2.5$15$17.5
GPT-5.6 Sol$5$30$35
Claude Fable 5$10$50$60

Main Chinese-model pricing

Pricing is shown exactly in the verified source currency. “Verify” means that the current region-neutral price was not safely captured.

ProviderModelCurrencyInput / 1MCached input / 1MOutput / 1MRegional caveatSource
DeepSeekV4 ProUSD$0.435/1M$0.004/1M$0.87/1MOfficial August 13 production revision DeepSeek-V4-Pro-0813. Prices shown are the current pre-August 17 tariff; announced peak/off-peak rates are future-dated. No independent 0813 benchmark package was verified by the edition cutoff.Official source (opens in a new tab)
DeepSeekV4 FlashUSD$0.14/1MVerify$0.28/1MDeepSeek primary documentation identifies April 24 as the V4 Preview API availability date. Later third-party score snapshots vary and should be read with their evaluation date and methodology.Official source (opens in a new tab)
Alibaba CloudQwen3.7-MaxCNYVerifyVerifyVerifyPricing, endpoint names and availability differ between China and international Model Studio regions.Official source (opens in a new tab)
Moonshot AIKimi K3CNY¥20/1M¥2/1M¥100/1MPrices are official CNY rates per million tokens and must not be displayed as USD.Official source (opens in a new tab)
Zhipu AIGLM-5.2CNYVerifyVerifyVerifyProvider capability statements require independent task-specific reproduction.Official source (opens in a new tab)
BaiduERNIE 5.0USD$1.4/1MVerify$5.6/1MThe displayed API price is from Baidu’s international Qianfan catalog; China-region billing differs.Official source (opens in a new tab)
ByteDanceDoubao Seed 2.1CNYVerifyVerifyVerifyVolcengine pricing uses tiered regional tables; verify the exact model ID and input-length tier.Official source (opens in a new tab)
MiniMaxMiniMax-M3USDVerifyVerifyVerifyUse the current regional pricing table and distinguish API pay-as-you-go from Token Plan subscriptions.Official source (opens in a new tab)
StepFunStep 3.7 FlashCNY¥1.35/1M¥0.27/1M¥8.1/1MOfficial prices are CNY per million tokens. Confirm current quotas and model lifecycle notices.Official source (opens in a new tab)
TencentHunyuan A13BCNYVerifyVerifyVerifyTencent is migrating newer model access toward TokenHub; verify the active platform before integration.Official source (opens in a new tab)
Alibaba CloudQwen-Image-3.0USDVerifyVerifyVerifyCapabilities and examples are provider-published; independent benchmark reproduction is pending.Official source (opens in a new tab)
Alibaba CloudQwen-Audio-3.0-TTS Flash / PlusUSDVerifyVerifyVerifyThe 300ms-level first-packet latency and multilingual results are provider-reported; verify independently for production workloads.Official source (opens in a new tab)

Consumer plans

The plan directory tracks current consumer AI providers. When a stable region-neutral price is not safely verified, the card directs readers to the official checkout instead of guessing.

Perplexity

Standard / Pro / Max / Education Pro

Education Pro: $10/month with verification; verify other paid tiers

Individual plans range from free search to higher-limit Pro and Max tiers; eligibility and regional terms vary.

Open official source (opens in a new tab)

Illustrative USD workload comparison

For one million input tokens and 250,000 output tokens, calculate input price + (output price × 0.25). This excludes cache discounts and tools.

ModelIllustrative cost
GPT-5.6 Luna$2.50
Grok 4.5$3.50
GPT-5.6 Terra$6.25
GPT-5.6 Sol$12.50
Claude Fable 5$22.50