pricepertoken
Google vs Perplexity · synced 2026-08-11

gemini-3.6-flash vs llama-3.1-8b-instruct

llama-3.1-8b-instruct is 7.5× cheaper on input than gemini-3.6-flash.

gemini-3.6-flash llama-3.1-8b-instruct
Input / 1M $1.50 $0.20
Cached input / 1M $0.15 —
Output / 1M $7.50 $0.20
Context window 1M 131K
Max output 66K 131K
Provider Google Perplexity
Vision Yes No
Tool calling Yes No
Token count estimated estimated

Capability for the money

Independent measurement · Artificial Analysis · read 2026-08-11

Not the same tier: gemini-3.6-flash leads llama-3.1-8b-instruct by 66.9 points on hard reasoning (GPQA Diamond), for 15.0× the price.

  1. Hard reasoning

    graduate-level science and multi-step analysis

    GPQA Diamond
    gemini-3.6-flash92.8%
    llama-3.1-8b-instruct25.9%

    gemini-3.6-flash +66.9

Averaged over the benchmarks both models sat, llama-3.1-8b-instruct returns 129.5 points of pass rate per dollar of blended price against 30.9 — the ratio that decides whether the dearer model earns its rate.

Each figure is a pass rate: the share of that test set the model answered correctly, measured by a third party rather than self-reported by the lab. Rows are different tests of different difficulty, so compare a model against the other model, not one row against the next. No published following instructions, coding or tool use score for one of these models, so those lenses are omitted. And a benchmark is not your workload — it narrows the shortlist, it does not pick for you.

Which to pick

List price is not production cost. Output length, cache hit rate, retries and task quality move the real number more than the headline rate does — price your own prompt on the token ledger before deciding.

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