Frontier token prices have fallen 84% in three years. benchlm's pricing index, refreshed september…
frontier token prices have fallen 84% in three years. benchlm's pricing index, refreshed september 18, puts the median flagship at $6 per million blended tokens across 21 models.
the frontier is now a commodity line item.
Context
BenchLM's token price index page, updated 1 October 2026 under methodology v1.3, shows an index of 16 for October 2026, 84 percent below its March 2023 base of 100, and a median blended price of 6.00 dollars per million tokens across 35 flagship models from seven providers. Prices are standard uncached rates with cache, batch, flex, volume and off-peak discounts excluded, blended as three parts input plus one part output over four, and the page says the median uses a changing model basket so entries and exits can move it without a price change. A secondary page reports a BenchLM snapshot of 23 September at index 18.7 with a median of 7 dollars across 22 models, and a snippet shows an August 21 version at index 12 with 4.50 dollars across 13 models.
The 84 percent and 6.00 dollars match the October window exactly, from BenchLM's own index and not an independent one. Refreshed September 18 and 21 models were not found: the live page shows 35 models and the other snapshots show 22 and 13, so those are different windows, not refutations, and a changing basket moves the median. March 2023 to September 2026 is about three and a half years. The index is list prices of a defined basket against a March 2023 base, not the price of one model. Vercel's AI Gateway index measures average price per token on its own traffic, so it is not interchangeable. The page prints a frontier year-over-year figure of plus 72 percent beside the 84 percent without explaining the sign, and it is reported as printed. That the frontier is now a commodity line item is the author's opinion; the page's flagship blended prices span from 1.56 to 262.50 dollars.
The same BenchLM index is the source for two other notes, which cite different snapshots. Vercel's September AI Gateway index (a 56 percent open-weight share and a 23.2 percent average per-token fall) is a separate traffic-weighted metric and not the origin of the 84 percent.
Related work
- Earlier note on the same index ↗Same BenchLM index, attributed there to Vercel.
Watch next
- The next BenchLM monthly build and any methodology change.
Sources
- Token price index (BenchLM, updated 1 Oct 2026)benchlm.ai
- Methodology (BenchLM)benchlm.ai
- Token price radar (jcodemunch, 24 Sep 2026)jcodemunch.com
Provenance
The note above is reproduced unedited from the original post, first published on Threads on 20 September 2026 at 12:04 IST. Sources are the papers and datasets the note draws on.
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