Llama 4 API Pricing: 10M Context for Pennies

Meta's Llama 4 Scout and Maverick both support 10 million token context windows — 50x larger than Claude, 10x larger than GPT-5.5 — at budget-tier prices. Here's what that means for your wallet.

Pricing at a Glance

Llama 4 Scout at $0.11/$0.34 is one of the cheapest models available, and it comes with a 10M context window. That's not a typo — ten million tokens. For comparison, GPT-5.5's 1M context costs $5/$30, and Claude Opus 4.7's 200K context costs $5/$25. You're getting 50x the context of Claude at 2% of the price.

Context Window Comparison

Model	Context	Input/1M	Output/1M	Cost for 10M input
Llama 4 Scout	10M	$0.11	$0.34	$1.10
Llama 4 Maverick	10M	$0.20	$0.60	$2.00
Gemini 3.1 Pro	10M	$2.00	$12.00	$20.00
GPT-5.5	1M	$5.00	$30.00	$50.00
Claude Opus 4.7	200K	$5.00	$25.00	N/A (exceeds context)

To process 10M input tokens, Llama 4 Scout costs $1.10. GPT-5.5 would cost $50 for 1/10th the context. That's a 45x cost difference for long-context workloads.

Cost Comparison by Use Case

1. Codebase Analysis (50 requests/day, 50K input + 2K output tokens)

Model	Input/mo	Output/mo	Total/mo
Llama 4 Scout	$8.25	$1.02	$9.27
Llama 4 Maverick	$15.00	$1.80	$16.80
Gemini 3.1 Pro	$150.00	$36.00	$186.00
GPT-5.5	$375.00	$9.00	$384.00

Winner: Llama 4 Scout — $9/month to analyze 50K-token codebases daily. GPT-5.5 would cost $384 for the same workload (and can't handle codebases over 1M tokens).

2. Document Processing (100 requests/day, 20K input + 1K output tokens)

Model	Input/mo	Output/mo	Total/mo
Llama 4 Scout	$6.60	$1.02	$7.62
Llama 4 Maverick	$12.00	$1.80	$13.80
Gemini 2.0 Flash	$60.00	$1.20	$61.20
Claude Opus 4.7	$300.00	$7.50	$307.50

Winner: Llama 4 Scout — processing 20K-token documents at $7.62/month. Claude Opus 4.7 costs 40x more for the same workload.

3. Chatbot (500 requests/day, 1500 input + 800 output tokens)

Model	Input/mo	Output/mo	Total/mo
DeepSeek V4 Flash	$10.50	$33.60	$44.10
Llama 4 Scout	$8.25	$40.80	$49.05
Gemini 2.0 Flash	$7.50	$48.00	$55.50
GPT-4o mini	$11.25	$72.00	$83.25

Winner: DeepSeek V4 Flash — for short-context chatbots, DeepSeek edges out Llama 4 on output cost. Llama 4's advantage only kicks in when you need the long context.

Scout vs Maverick: Which One?

Feature	Llama 4 Scout	Llama 4 Maverick
Input price	$0.11/1M	$0.20/1M
Output price	$0.34/1M	$0.60/1M
Context window	10M	10M
Best for	High-volume, simple tasks	Complex reasoning, analysis
Cost difference	Maverick is ~80% more expensive

• Choose Scout for classification, extraction, summarization, and other tasks where output quality is "good enough"
• Choose Maverick for tasks requiring stronger reasoning: code generation, detailed analysis, complex Q&A
• Use both: Route simple requests to Scout, complex ones to Maverick

The Open Source Advantage

Llama 4 is open-weight, which means you're not locked into a single API provider. The same model is available on:

• Together.ai — $0.11/$0.34 (Scout), $0.20/$0.60 (Maverick)
• Fireworks.ai — competitive pricing, check current rates
• Replicate — pay-per-second GPU pricing
• Self-hosted — run on your own infrastructure for zero API costs (hardware permitting)

This competition keeps prices low. If one provider raises prices, switch to another. You can't do that with GPT or Claude.

When to Choose Llama 4

• You need to process very long documents (>1M tokens) at budget prices
• You're doing codebase analysis or RAG over large knowledge bases
• You want vendor flexibility — switch providers without changing models
• Cost per token is your primary concern
• You're comfortable with open-source model quality

When to Choose Something Else

• You need the absolute best reasoning (flagship models still win)
• You need multimodal capabilities (vision, audio)
• You need guaranteed SLAs from a single provider
• Your context is under 200K (the price advantage shrinks)
• You need advanced tool use / function calling

Cost Optimization Tips

1. Right-size your context: Don't feed 10M tokens if 100K will do — you're still paying per token
2. Use Scout for batch jobs: Offline processing where speed matters less than cost
3. Compare providers: Together.ai, Fireworks, and others have different pricing for the same model
4. Consider self-hosting: For very high volumes, self-hosting Llama 4 can be cheaper than any API

Share on X Share on LinkedIn