GPT-5.1 Instant vs LongCat-Flash-Thinking

    Comparison

    As of August 25, 2026, LongCat-Flash-Thinking is 87% cheaper per million tokens than GPT-5.1 Instant. GPT-5.1 Instant is $1.25 / $10.00 per million input/output tokens versus LongCat-Flash-Thinking at $0.30 / $1.20. Sources: https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing and https://anotherwrapper.com/tools/llm-pricing

    Sources: OpenAI API pricing (https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing); AnotherWrapper LLM pricing (https://anotherwrapper.com/tools/llm-pricing)

    GPT-5.1 Instant

    OpenAI

    $11.25blended / 1M

    Input

    $1.25

    Output

    $10.00

    400K ctx|Proprietary
    87%
    cheaper
    Better value

    LongCat-Flash-Thinking

    Meituan

    $1.50blended / 1M

    Input

    $0.30

    Output

    $1.20

    128K ctx|Open Source
    Save $9.75 per million tokens by choosing LongCat-Flash-Thinking over GPT-5.1 Instant.

    GPT-5.1 Instant vs LongCat-Flash-Thinking comparison

    Token pricing, specs, and benchmarks side by side

    Shared benchmarks

    Each bar is share of the current leader on that eval. Click a row to open the board.

    Score vs price

    SWE-bench Verified. Left is cheaper. Up is a higher score. The line is the best score you can buy at each price.

    Best score at each priceGPT-5.1 InstantLongCat-Flash-Thinking
    Metric
    GPT-5.1 Instant
    LongCat-Flash-Thinking
    Provider
    Provider
    OpenAI
    Meituan
    License
    Proprietary
    Open Source
    Release Date
    2025-11-12
    2025-09-22
    Pricing (per 1M tokens)
    Input Price+317%
    $1.25
    $0.30
    Output Price+733%
    $10.00
    $1.20
    Blended (1M + 1M)
    $11.25
    $1.50
    Model Details
    Context Window
    400K
    128K
    Max Output Tokens
    128K
    128K
    Knowledge Cutoff
    N/A
    N/A
    Throughput
    100 tok/s
    100 tok/s
    Benchmarks
    6.8%
    88.1%
    81.5%
    26.7%
    94%
    90.6%
    93.3%
    99.2%
    85.4%
    50.3%
    74.4%
    82.6%
    89.3%
    95.5%
    Benchmark Wins
    GPT-5.1 Instant 7|1 LongCat-Flash-Thinking

    Verdict

    GPT-5.1 Instant vs LongCat-Flash-Thinking: the bottom line

    LongCat-Flash-Thinking offers significantly lower pricing, while GPT-5.1 Instant leads on benchmark performance. Your choice depends on whether cost efficiency or raw capability matters more for your use case.

    GPT-5.1 Instant vs LongCat-Flash-Thinking FAQ

    Which is cheaper, GPT-5.1 Instant or LongCat-Flash-Thinking?

    As of August 25, 2026, LongCat-Flash-Thinking is 87% cheaper on blended LLM API pricing. LongCat-Flash-Thinking costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens ($1.50 blended 1M-in + 1M-out). GPT-5.1 Instant costs $1.25 / $10.00 per million tokens ($11.25 blended). Sources: https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing and https://anotherwrapper.com/tools/llm-pricing. The cheapest LLM for your app still depends on how many output tokens you generate.

    How much does GPT-5.1 Instant vs LongCat-Flash-Thinking cost per million tokens?

    GPT-5.1 Instant OpenAI API pricing is $1.25 input and $10.00 output per million tokens via OpenAI. LongCat-Flash-Thinking Meituan API pricing is $0.30 input and $1.20 output per million tokens via Meituan. Use those four numbers, not ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro subscription prices, when you are comparing APIs.

    Which is better for coding, GPT-5.1 Instant or LongCat-Flash-Thinking?

    GPT-5.1 Instant leads on SWE-bench Verified: GPT-5.1 Instant at 76.3% vs LongCat-Flash-Thinking at 59.4%. SWE-bench measures real GitHub fixes; LiveCodeBench measures contest programming.

    What is the context window for GPT-5.1 Instant vs LongCat-Flash-Thinking?

    GPT-5.1 Instant supports a 400K token context window, while LongCat-Flash-Thinking supports 128K tokens. GPT-5.1 Instant offers a larger context window. Filling a larger window bills more input tokens, so the cheaper-per-million model can still cost more on long documents.

    Which model performs better on benchmarks, GPT-5.1 Instant or LongCat-Flash-Thinking?

    GPT-5.1 Instant leads on 7 of 8 shared benchmarks versus LongCat-Flash-Thinking's 1 wins. Check the comparison table for GPQA Diamond, SWE-bench, MMLU, HLE, and the other evals we track. Token price and benchmark score together are the usual LLM comparison, not either number alone.

    Is GPT-5.1 Instant or LongCat-Flash-Thinking better for production use?

    Both GPT-5.1 Instant and LongCat-Flash-Thinking are production API models. For cost-sensitive production traffic, LongCat-Flash-Thinking has better economics on the blended 1M-in + 1M-out scale. For maximum capability, weight the benchmark table for your domain. Many production stacks route cheap models for drafts and a frontier model for the hard turn, which is usually cheaper than sending everything to the expensive API.

    Can I switch between GPT-5.1 Instant and LongCat-Flash-Thinking in my app?

    Yes. Call GPT-5.1 Instant through OpenAI and LongCat-Flash-Thinking through Meituan with separate API keys, or through a gateway that already wraps both. Keep prompts in tokens, not characters, when you estimate the invoice. AnotherWrapper templates can swap providers without rewriting auth and billing.

    How accurate is this GPT-5.1 Instant vs LongCat-Flash-Thinking pricing data?

    List rates are the latest published OpenAI API pricing and Meituan API pricing, quoted per million tokens. Official rate sheets: https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing and https://anotherwrapper.com/tools/llm-pricing. Prompt caching, batch APIs, and committed-use discounts can change the invoice. Benchmark scores are from official publications and independent evals, updated as new numbers land.

    What is the output token limit for GPT-5.1 Instant and LongCat-Flash-Thinking?

    GPT-5.1 Instant supports up to 128K output tokens per request, while LongCat-Flash-Thinking supports up to 128K output tokens. Output tokens are usually the expensive half of API pricing, so a higher max output cap is a capability, not a discount.

    Which model has better throughput, GPT-5.1 Instant or LongCat-Flash-Thinking?

    GPT-5.1 Instant runs at approximately 100 tokens/second while LongCat-Flash-Thinking runs at 100 tokens/second. LongCat-Flash-Thinking is faster in raw throughput. Throughput (tokens per second) and time-to-first-token are why two models with the same per-million-token price can still feel different in chat and agents.

    How do I switch the models in this GPT-5.1 Instant vs LongCat-Flash-Thinking comparison?

    Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open GPT-5.1 Instant or LongCat-Flash-Thinking from the sidebar for the single-model API pricing page, or go back to the LLM pricing table to sort by cheapest blended cost.

    GPT-5.1 Instant vs LongCat-Flash-Thinking pricing

    This comparison covers API pricing, context window, throughput, and benchmark scores. GPT-5.1 Instant costs $1.25/M input and $10.00/M output. LongCat-Flash-Thinking costs $0.30/M input and $1.20/M output.

    Rank both on the LLM leaderboard, SWE-bench, and Humanity's Last Exam.

    The index

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