Inference price at fixed capability (halving time)
1What this measures
Halving time of the lowest price per million tokens among models clearing GPT-4-0314's GPQA Diamond score, fitted from 2023 on Epoch's price-trend series. Derived metric inference_price_halving_days.
Why it matters. Price per unit of capability on a benchmark axis, the lab layer's capture proxy; the brief cites about 40x a year at this threshold.
- Proxy types
- price
- Unit
- days
- Cadence
- annual
- Valve
- invention to product
2How we track this
- derived metric
inference_price_halving_days(formula in the semantic layer)
- Normal band
- ≥ 230 days
- Fast band
- ≤ 110 days
- Falsifying
- —
Normal = halving no faster than every 230 days (about 3x a year, the hardware pace); fast = every 110 days or less (10x a year or more; Epoch's reading at this threshold is faster still). Between is emerging.
Applied to metric:inference_price_halving_days.
3Tracker interpretation
Few points, and the cheapest model at a fixed threshold is rarely the frontier; the METR-hour price series on OpenRouter is the companion reading.
4Evidence
6 observations. Hollow points are disputed (see counterevidence). Every point links to its observation.
Derived rows (1)
| as of | dims | value | inputs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-12-13 | 5.3 6 0.757 | 68 days | obs:4a9a97e9obs:6a8f4f15obs:6c3cb247+3 more |
5Status and reasoning
Epoch's price-trend series for the GPQA Diamond threshold set by GPT-4-0314: the lowest price per million tokens halves every 68 days (CI 38-317) on six points from 2023 to December 2024, inside the fast band (110 days or less, about 40x a year). Single tier-6 source with six points caps the status at emerging; the series ends in December 2024 and is refreshed when Epoch republishes it. Initial seed.
The tracker's prior expectation was faster than normal; the evaluator reads emerging. The evaluator wins until a reviewed override.
6Timeline notes
- 2024-12-13 · 68 daysas of 2024-12-13(6 obs)
7Counterevidence
What cuts against this reading
Six-ish points on one benchmark threshold; list prices; a threshold fixed in 2023 measures commodity capability, not frontier capability.
8Update history
- 2026-09-10unmeasured to emergingconf — → 45 · evaluate
Epoch's price-trend series for the GPQA Diamond threshold set by GPT-4-0314: the lowest price per million tokens halves every 68 days (CI 38-317) on six points from 2023 to December 2024, inside the fast band (110 days or less, about 40x a year). Single tier-6 source with six points caps the status at emerging; the series ends in December 2024 and is refreshed when Epoch republishes it. Initial seed.
9Confidence
45 / 95 — limited or vague evidence
Confidence is independent of status: 90–95 multiple strong independent sources; 70–89 good evidence, some ambiguity; 50–69 mixed or hard to operationalise; below 50 limited or vague.
10Related
- Price per unit of capability (cheapest METR-hour on OpenRouter) not yet measurable
- Hardware price-performance growth (doubling time) consistent with normal
- Crosswalk: Methods ⇄ Model (same valve)