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Model

Price per unit of capability (cheapest METR-hour on OpenRouter)

not yet measurable40/95 confidence, limited or vaguegrade Acoincident

1What this measures

For each price date, the lowest OpenRouter prompt price (USD per million tokens) divided by the model's latest METR 50% time horizon in hours, across models present in both datasets. Derived metric frontier_price_per_horizon_hour.

Why it matters. Price per unit of capability is the lab layer's capture proxy. Falling means the surplus from better models is passed to applications and users; flat or rising means labs keep it.

Proxy types
price
Unit
USD
Cadence
daily

2How we track this

  • derived metric frontier_price_per_horizon_hour (formula in the semantic layer)

Direction over 4 periods, dead-band $0.02; higher = concentrating.

Four price change-points; a move under two cents per million tokens per horizon-hour is noise. Rising = labs keeping the surplus from capability gains.

Applied to metric:frontier_price_per_horizon_hour.

3Tracker interpretation

The series records price change-points from 10 September 2026; a direction needs several months of them.

4Evidence

Direction over the last 4 periods; the band is ±$0.02 around the window's first point. Higher reads concentrating.

Latest point
$0.30as of 2026-09-10(32 obs)
Value the bands apply to
$0.30as of 2026-09-10(32 obs)

32 observations. Hollow points are disputed (see counterevidence). Every point links to its observation.

Derived rows (1)
as ofdimsvalueinputs
2026-09-10$0.30obs:03f5354fobs:0862bc67obs:0d21fe65+29 more

5Status and reasoning

not yet measurablesince 2026-09-10 · evaluate

First price snapshot, 10 Sep 2026: the cheapest METR-measured capability on OpenRouter costs about $0.30 per million prompt tokens per hour of 50% time horizon (16 models present in both datasets). The series records price change-points, so a direction needs four more of them; not yet measurable until then. Initial seed.

6Timeline notes

  • 2026-09-10 · $0.30as of 2026-09-10(32 obs)

7Counterevidence

What cuts against this reading

One router's list prices, prompt tokens only; METR's horizon is software tasks under its suite, not general capability; the cheapest model per horizon-hour is a moving target as models are added.

8Update history

  1. 2026-09-10unmeasured to not yet measurableconf — → 40 · evaluate

    First price snapshot, 10 Sep 2026: the cheapest METR-measured capability on OpenRouter costs about $0.30 per million prompt tokens per hour of 50% time horizon (16 models present in both datasets). The series records price change-points, so a direction needs four more of them; not yet measurable until then. Initial seed.

    obs:03f5354fobs:0862bc67obs:0d21fe65obs:261c1f51obs:2eb7c897obs:37e97a6f+26 more

9Confidence

40 / 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