Who ranks #1 on the Squality leaderboard?
As of August 20, 2026, Phi-3.5-mini-instruct by Microsoft ranks #1 on Squality at 24.3%. API pricing is $0.10/M input and $0.10/M output.
As of August 20, 2026, Phi-3.5-mini-instruct is #1 for Squality at 24.3%. Ranked by the Squality score 4 models in this index have a published Squality score. Squality leaderboard: rank models by Squality next to live API token prices.
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As of August 20, 2026, Phi-3.5-mini-instruct by Microsoft is #1 for Squality at 24.3%. Ranked by the Squality score This board also tracks Squality. Next on the same board: Nova Pro and Nova Lite. This squality leaderboard ranks models by Squality. Scores come from public evals. Prices are the live API rates in the table above.
Sources: OpenAI API pricing (https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing); Anthropic Claude API pricing (https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing); Gemini API pricing (https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing)
| Rank | Model | Squality | Input /M | Output /M |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Phi-3.5-mini-instruct | 24.3% | $0.10 | $0.10 |
| 2 | Nova Pro | 19.8% | $0.80 | $3.20 |
| 3 | Nova Lite | 19.2% | $0.06 | $0.24 |
| 4 | Nova Micro | 18.8% | $0.03 | $0.14 |
Rank one eval at a time. All LLM benchmarks.
As of August 20, 2026, Phi-3.5-mini-instruct by Microsoft ranks #1 on Squality at 24.3%. API pricing is $0.10/M input and $0.10/M output.
The current Squality ranking as of August 20, 2026 is 1. Phi-3.5-mini-instruct at 24.3%; 2. Nova Pro at 19.8%; 3. Nova Lite at 19.2%.
Nova Micro is the cheapest scored model on this squality leaderboard at $0.03/M input and $0.14/M output ($0.17 blended). Phi-3.5-mini-instruct still leads Squality at 24.3%.
Not automatically. Phi-3.5-mini-instruct leads Squality, but a cheaper scored model can be the better production choice if the quality gap is small. Use the table to weigh Squality against input/output price, context window, and related evals.
Scores and API prices on this page are refreshed from published evals and provider rates. The snapshot is labeled August 20, 2026. Treat it as a current index, not a one-off blog post.
Squality is a public LLM eval (the Squality score). This page ranks models that have published a score, next to live API prices.
This page is the Squality leaderboard. Models are sorted by Squality, with input and output token prices on the same row so you can weigh score against cost. Official boards often omit price; that comparison is the point of this index.
Official eval pages own the methodology. This page keeps the published Squality score next to live API $/M so you can pick a production SKU, not only a trophy number.