AI Budget Calculator

Which AI plan gives the most intelligence per dollar? Ranked by intelligence-weighted tokens — the AA Intelligence Index × token volume. ZCode (GLM-5.3-Flash, $18–160/mo) dominates subscriptions; Qwen3.8-Flash-Next ($0.16/$0.47 per M) dominates PAYG. Alibaba Cloud Token Plan is China-region only and not listed. Pricing as of September 2026.

Monthly budget

Use case

#	Plan	Model	AA Index	Tokens/$ (M)	IWT (M)	$/task	Verdict
🏆	ZCode Max $160/mo · 140k credits/week · GLM-5.3-Flash ~8,864–17,731M tok/mo. Peak use only. Best intelligence-per-dollar at this budget.	GLM-5.3 / GLM-5.3-Flash	57	13298.0	7579.9	$0.030m	Best intelligence-per-dollar at this budget.
2	ZCode Pro $72/mo · 60k credits/week · GLM-5.3-Flash ~3,798–7,599M tok/mo. Best IWT/$ at $100+. Requires $72/mo — over budget.	GLM-5.3 / GLM-5.3-Flash	57	5699.0	3248.4	$0.032m	Requires $72/mo — over budget.
3	ZCode Lite $18/mo · 10k credits/week · GLM-5.3-Flash ~632–1,264M tok/mo (95% cache). Arena WebDev rank 13. Budget-friendly; lower intelligence ceiling.	GLM-5.3 / GLM-5.3-Flash	57	948.0	540.4	$0.047m	Budget-friendly; lower intelligence ceiling.
4	DeepSeek V4 Flash API Arena rank 18 (1581) · cheapest PAYG · $0.027/$0.11 per M · MIT. Budget-friendly; lower intelligence ceiling.	DeepSeek V4 Flash	48	292.0	140.1	$0.109m	Budget-friendly; lower intelligence ceiling.
5	Qwen3.8-Flash-Next API Arena rank 10 (1622, prelim) · $0.16/$0.47 per M · Apache 2.0 · via Alibaba Cloud intl API. Solid mid-range choice with good token volume.	Qwen3.8-Flash-Next	60	63.5	38.1	$0.555m	Solid mid-range choice with good token volume.
6	Kimi Code $19/mo (app plan) · K3 $3/$15 per M API. Arena rank 4 (1674). Consumer plan token vol est. Solid mid-range choice with good token volume.	Kimi K3	64	58.0	37.1	$0.862m	Solid mid-range choice with good token volume.
7	GLM-5.3-Flash API Arena rank 13 (1604) · $0.15/$0.50 per M (50% promo ends Sep 9) · MIT · via z.ai API. Budget-friendly; lower intelligence ceiling.	GLM-5.3-Flash	57	61.5	35.1	$0.550m	Budget-friendly; lower intelligence ceiling.
8	Qwen3.8-27B API Arena rank 14 (1597) · $0.40/$3 std; ~$0.20/$0.60 via OpenRouter · Apache 2.0. Budget-friendly; lower intelligence ceiling.	Qwen3.8-27B	56	50.0	28.0	$0.700m	Budget-friendly; lower intelligence ceiling.
9	DeepSeek V4 Pro API Arena rank 17 (1582) · $0.65/$2.19 per M · MIT. Solid mid-range choice with good token volume.	DeepSeek V4 Pro	60	14.1	8.5	$0.0024	Solid mid-range choice with good token volume.
10	Kimi K2.7 Code API Arena rank 47 (1473) · $0.95/$4.00 per M · 256k ctx · coding-focused. Budget-friendly; lower intelligence ceiling.	Kimi K2.7 Code	57	8.1	4.6	$0.0039	Budget-friendly; lower intelligence ceiling.
11	Cursor Pro $20/mo · 500 premium requests · capped volume; good for light use only. Fixed request cap limits volume; good for light use.	Grok 4.6 (500 req cap)	63	0.5	0.3	$0.1000	Fixed request cap limits volume; good for light use.

🏆 Winner at $20/mo: ZCode Max

GLM-5.3 / GLM-5.3-Flash · AA Index 57 · 7579.9M intelligence-weighted tokens · $160/mo subscription

IWT = intelligence-weighted tokens = tokens × (AA Index / 100). Task cost assumes 2k input + 500 output tokens. Greyed rows exceed your budget. AA Intelligence Index sourced from Artificial Analysis.

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