Models / Use cases
Best reasoning models, where the frontier tier earns its price
Reasoning-heavy tasks reward the frontier tier: extended thinking, reliable self-correction, and long chains of tool calls. Here is where each frontier model earns its price, and where a cheaper model is enough.
Ranked
The picks
Claude Opus 4.6
Anthropic
The deep-reasoning ceiling, the pick when the answer has to be right the first time.
Context
200K tokens
Tools
Yes
Vision
Yes
View Claude Opus 4.6 pricing and playground →
GPT-5.5
OpenAI's flagship reasoning line, the benchmark pick for hard planning and math.
Gemini 3.1 Pro (preview)
PreviewFrontier reasoning plus a huge context window, built for analysis over massive source material.
DeepSeek V4 Pro
Open-weights reasoning at roughly a quarter of frontier pricing, the value pick for long analytical batches.
GLM-5.2
Open-weights reasoning with strong coding carry-over, useful when the hard thinking ends in code.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is a reasoning model worth the price for everyday tasks?
Usually not. Route everyday extraction and summarization to a fast tier and reserve reasoning models for planning and verification steps. One balance across both makes the split trivial.
Do reasoning models bill for thinking tokens?
Yes, and every provider on this page counts them as output tokens. That is why a reasoning model's real cost per task can be several times its headline output rate, and why the cheaper tiers win on volume work.
Does a bigger context window make a model reason better?
No. Context is capacity, not capability. Gemini 3.1 Pro's million-token window is the reason to use it over source material you cannot summarise, not evidence it thinks harder than a model with 200K.
How do I compare reasoning quality without trusting benchmarks?
Run the same prompt against two or three of these in the chat and read the outputs side by side. Benchmarks measure a distribution; your task is one point in it, and the comparison takes a minute.
Can I cap what a reasoning model spends on one request?
Yes. Set max_tokens, and the gateway refuses any request whose projected cost exceeds your balance before it reaches the provider, so a runaway thinking loop cannot quietly drain an account.
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