Pareto / Coding on a budget
Cheapest AI for coding? Check cost per task.
Looking for the cheapest AI for coding or the best cheap coding model? An agent makes many calls per task, so the token price is half the answer. Pareto publishes both.
Two ways to pay
$10/month Personal
50M tokens/week · 20 requests/minute
Or pay as you go with Team: $0.80 input · $0.03 cached input · $3.20 output per million tokens
New API accounts require manual approval.
Benchmarks in the box above: Preliminary October 1, 2026 runs that may change; denominators and cost method still require confirmation. Not an estimate for your workload. Model card and method.
Comparing cheap coding models?
Four things to check, with our numbers.
Price per token
$0.80 per million input tokens, $0.03 cached input and $3.20 output, on the pricing page.
Cost per task
Mean cost per task in the model card’s preliminary runs: $0.24 on DeepSWE v1.1 (69.9% solved) and $0.48 on Terminal-Bench 4.0 (50.8% solved).
Does it pass your checks?
In this captured run, the function below passed all four checks from its prompt; the raw capture is linked. One run is one data point: run your own tasks too, and results on your code will differ.
Flat price or per token?
Personal is $10/month for 50M tokens a week. Team credits are pay as you go, with no weekly token cap and 300 requests per minute.
One real task
A real function, written and checked.
Prompt
Write a JavaScript function slugify(title) that passes these checks. Reply with the function only.
console.assert(slugify("Hello, World!") === "hello-world");
console.assert(slugify(" Ship it today ") === "ship-it-today");
console.assert(slugify("Café & Crème") === "cafe-creme");
console.assert(slugify("--Already--slugged--") === "already-slugged");
Pareto’s answer, unedited
function slugify(title) {
return title
.normalize("NFD")
.replace(/[\u0300-\u036f]/g, "")
.toLowerCase()
.replace(/[^a-z0-9]+/g, "-")
.replace(/^-+|-+$/g, "");
}
The checks (slugify.test.js, in full)
const assert = require("node:assert");
assert.ok(slugify("Hello, World!") === "hello-world");
assert.ok(slugify(" Ship it today ") === "ship-it-today");
assert.ok(slugify("Café & Crème") === "cafe-creme");
assert.ok(slugify("--Already--slugged--") === "already-slugged");
console.log("all checks passed");Result
$ node slugify.test.js
all checks passedWe pasted the answer's function above the prompt's four checks and ran them with Node.js 20, with each check as a hard assertion (assert.ok) so a failure stops the run.
Captured October 20, 2026 from the Unbiased API (model pareto, served as Pareto 26.10). 170 tokens (98 prompt, 72 answer), as reported by the API. On pay-as-you-go credits this call cost $0.0003 at the published rates. Raw capture.
The setup
Point your coding agent at Pareto.
Pareto speaks the OpenAI Chat Completions and Anthropic Messages formats (API spec), so a coding agent that lets you set a base URL and a model name can usually use it.
Choose a plan
Create your platform account and pick a plan. New accounts are reviewed by a person before API access turns on. Your API key is issued on the platform once you’re approved.Enter three settings
In your agent’s model or provider settings:Base URL: https://api.unbiased.ai/v1 Model: pareto API key: your Unbiased API key
Agents built on the Anthropic SDK take the base URL without/v1(quickstart):https://api.unbiased.ai
Keep the key in an environment variable or your OS keychain, never in a repo.If your tool lists models
Model listing (GET /v1/models) isn’t implemented yet (API spec). Typeparetoby hand.
50M tokens/week · 20 requests/minute · one person. New API accounts require manual approval.
Product names belong to their owners. Unbiased is not affiliated with or endorsed by the makers of the coding agents you connect.
One model string.
Several models behind it.
Pareto is Unbiased’s blended AI model: it runs a mix of frontier and open models on each request and blends their outputs into one answer.
Cost per task
Four benchmarks, priced per task.
| Benchmark | Pareto 26.10 score | Cost per task |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA-Diamond | 92.4% | $0.004 |
| Humanity’s Last Exam (text-only) | 49.9% | $0.008 |
| DeepSWE v1.1 | 69.9% | $0.24 |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 | 50.8% | $0.48 |
Bigger weeks
When $10 a month isn’t enough.
Personal Max
$100/month for 600M tokens a week at 60 requests per minute, for one person.
Team credits
Prepaid pay-as-you-go credits at the published rates, with no weekly token cap.
Same settings
Every plan uses the same base URL, the same model string, pareto, and your own API key.
When prices move
When frontier prices fall.
“When the frontier improves, Pareto improves; when frontier prices fall, you should benefit.”Pricing page
Which coding agents work?
Tools that speak the OpenAI Chat Completions or Anthropic Messages format and let you set a base URL and model name can usually connect. Use the base URL https://api.unbiased.ai/v1 and the model string pareto.
What happens when I hit the weekly allowance?
Requests over your plan’s limits return an HTTP 429 error, per the API spec at unbiased.ai/openapi.json. Personal includes 50M tokens a week and 20 requests per minute. Personal Max raises that to 600M a week and 60 requests per minute for $100/month. Team uses prepaid pay-as-you-go credits with no weekly token cap.
How does pay-as-you-go billing work?
Team uses prepaid credits at the published rates: $0.80 input, $0.03 cached input and $3.20 output per million tokens, with no weekly token cap and 300 requests per minute.
Is my code kept?
Unbiased Chat, Personal and Personal Max are not part of our Zero Data Retention API. Under section 5(c) of the Terms, prompts and responses on those plans may be kept for up to 30 days for abuse prevention, security monitoring, debugging and product improvement, and our staff may access them. Conversations and Projects you save in Chat are kept until you delete them; otherwise for the length of the contract plus 30 days, or 30 days after a verified account deletion request, whichever is earlier. Standard pay-as-you-go API traffic on Team credits isn’t part of the Zero Data Retention API either: under section 5(c)(i) it may be kept for up to 30 days for abuse prevention and security monitoring. The Zero Data Retention API is described on the Private AI page.
What can I buy today?
Personal is $10/month with 50M tokens a week and 20 requests per minute. Personal Max is $100/month with 600M tokens a week and 60 requests per minute. Team uses prepaid pay-as-you-go credits, with no weekly token cap and 300 requests per minute. Subscriptions are for one person and are not unlimited.
When can I start using the API?
Create or sign in to your platform account to choose a plan. New API accounts require manual approval before access turns on; payment does not mean instant access.
Price it on your own code.
$10/month for one person, with weekly and request limits.