October 2026 edition · refreshed every morning

Which AI model should you use right now?

Best overall, best value and best for the job across video, image, voice, music and language. Where we have run our own head-to-head test, it counts most. Every score and price links to where it came from and when we read it.

How we test

Our test or real usePublic arena rankLive provider priceA hollow box means we have no evidence of that kind yet.

What's new

Releases and arena debuts from the last few weeks · checked Oct 18

Oct 17Language DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 New language model, $0.15 in / $0.6 out per 1M tokensOpenRouter models API
Oct 15Video Bytedance Omnihuman V2 New on fal.ai (image to video)fal.ai catalog
Oct 15Image FLUX.3 Klein New on fal.ai (text to image)fal.ai catalog
Oct 15Image Krea 3 Text to Image New on fal.ai (text to image)fal.ai catalog
Oct 15Language NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Super VL New language model, $0.1 in / $0.4 out per 1M tokensOpenRouter models API
Oct 14Voice Fish Audio Drama 3 Preview Debuts at #10 on the speech arena (score 1244)Artificial Analysis
Oct 13Language Google: Gemini 4 Argon New language model, $2 in / $10 out per 1M tokensOpenRouter models API
Oct 6Image Nano Banana 2.1 Debuts at #4 on the image arena (score 1174)Artificial Analysis

Practical

What will my project cost?

Pick a project and the models. Prices are read from each provider's own page, so this is what it costs today, not a guess.

Video

Full video board

Best overall

MiniMax H3 Max (on fal)

MiniMax

Our testLip-synced talking charactersOct 4, 2026Arena#5 of 23 · tied with #1Image to video arena, as MiniMax H3 MaxCost$0.26 per 5-second clip at 768p (promo price until Oct 31, then $0.40)fal.ai page

Best value

MiniMax H3 (768p)

#1 on the image to video arena · $5.40 per minute of video

Same family as best overall: the top tier is also the cheapest here.

Best for the job

Talking characters, lip-synced to your own audioMiniMax H3 Max (on fal)
Flat 2D explainer animationKling 3.0
A video starring a real personWan 3.0

Image

Full image board

Best overall

GPT Image 2.5 (Sunburst)

OpenAI

Our testA comic page with a recurring characterSep 4, 2026Arena#1 of 104Image arena, as GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst (max)Cost$0.21 per imagelisted by Artificial Analysis

Best value

Nano Banana 2.1

#4 · $0.0336 per image

Would win about 43 of 100 blind matchups against #1.

Best for the job

A real person's likenessGPT Image 2.5 (Sunburst)
Cheap, high-volume stillsMuse Image
Mature or violent scenes (comics, horror)Qwen Image 3

Voice

Full voice board

Best overall

ElevenLabs v4 Turbo

ElevenLabs

Our testSame script, three voice modelsOct 17, 2026Arena#1 of 97Speech arena, as Eleven v4 TurboCost$0.04 per 1,000 characters (about a minute of speech)ElevenLabs page

Best value

Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS

#5 · $16.49 per 1M characters

Would win about 42 of 100 blind matchups against #1.

Best for the job

Documentary narrationElevenLabs v4 Turbo
Phone agents and real-time voiceElevenLabs v4 Turbo
Cloning your own voiceElevenLabs v4 Turbo

Music

Full music board

Best overall

Suno v6

Suno

Our testNone in 90 daysarena + creatorsArena#1 of 13Music arena (songs with vocals), as Suno v6Cost$8.00 a month on the Pro plan, billed yearlySuno page

Best value

The music arena lists no prices, so we do not compute a value pick here.

Best for the job

Songs with vocalsSuno v6
Instrumental score and bedsSuno v6
Songs you can sell or put in an adSuno v6

Language

Full language board

Best overall

Claude Opus 5.5

Anthropic

Our testNone in 90 daysarena + creatorsBenchmark#1 of 88Intelligence Index, as Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)Cost$4.00 in / $20.00 out per 1M tokensAnthropic page

Best value

Claude Sonnet 5.5

#2 · $2.00 in / $10.00 out per 1M tokens

56 vs 57.6 for #1, within 5%.

Best for the job

Building, coding and agent workClaude Opus 5.5
The same work at half the priceClaude Sonnet 5.5
Always-on bots at volumeGemini 3.8 Flash

NextHow we testWhy our own tests count most