AI ranking

Best AI models for creative writing

Fiction and free-form writing, rated blindly by people: work of this kind has no correct answer, so preference is the most honest measure available. There is also a second view, from a scored run of set tasks; it measures something else and yields a different order.

One question, two ways to answer it. The two metrics measure different things and do not add up into a single score.

100 models in the table
236 considered in the calculation
30 July 2026 measurement date at the source
27 July 2026 newest model released here
7 August 2026 last recalculated

Not every model is measured here. This table is missing 4 of the top ten from the “By solved tasks” tab — GPT 5 2025-08-07, Kimi K2 Instruct, OpenAI o3-pro (2025-06-10), GPT 5 Mini 2025-08-07. They have no score at all on this tab's task sets: an empty place means "not measured", not "performed badly". The newest model this task set has reached was released on 27 July 2026.

# Model Developer Arena Score, writing Sign in$ / 1M Output$ / 1M Contexttokens
1 Claude Opus 5 Anthropic 1,510.88 1,481–1,541 $5 $25 1,000K
2 Claude Fable 5 Anthropic 1,498.96 1,487–1,511 $10 $50 1,000K
3 Gemini 3 Pro Google DeepMind 1,481.7 1,473–1,490 $1.6 $9.6 1,049K
4 Claude Opus 4.6 Anthropic 1,481.69 1,475–1,489 $5 $25 1,000K
5 Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview Google DeepMind 1,481.61 1,475–1,488 $2 $12 1,049K
6 Claude Opus 4.7 Anthropic 1,476.58 1,469–1,484 $5 $25 1,000K
7 Gemini 3.5 Flash Google DeepMind 1,470.09 1,454–1,486 $1.5 $9 1,049K
8 Kimi K3 Moonshot AI (Kimi) 1,464.37 1,440–1,489 $2 $8 1,049K
9 Gemini 3.6 Flash Google DeepMind 1,463.55 1,445–1,482 $1.5 $7.5 1,049K
10 Gemini 3 Flash Google DeepMind 1,458.54 1,449–1,468 $0.4 $2.4 1,049K
11 GLM 5.2 Zhipu AI / Z.ai 1,456.24 1,446–1,467 $0.42 $1.32 1,049K
12 Gemini 2.5 Pro Google DeepMind 1,454.49 1,449–1,460 $1.25 $10 1,049K
13 GLM 5.1 Zhipu AI / Z.ai 1,454.14 1,445–1,463 $0.06 $0.22 205K
14 GPT-5.6 Sol OpenAI 1,453.45 1,437–1,470 $5 $30 1,050K
15 DeepSeek V4 Pro DeepSeek 1,443.14 1,435–1,451 $0.44 $0.87 1,049K
16 Claude Opus 4.8 Anthropic 1,443.1 1,434–1,452 $5 $25 1,000K
17 Claude Sonnet 4.5 Anthropic 1,440.99 1,435–1,447 $3 $15 1,000K
18 Claude 4.5 Opus Anthropic 1,440.86 1,434–1,447 $5 $25 200K
19 Muse Spark 1.1 Meta AI 1,440.45 1,426–1,455 $1.25 $4.25 1,049K
20 Qwen3.7 Plus Alibaba (Qwen) 1,440.34 1,430–1,450 $0.5 $3 1,000K
21 ERNIE 5.1 Baidu (Ernie) 1,439.68 1,431–1,448 $0.75 $3 119K
22 Grok 4.5 xAI 1,439.21 1,424–1,454 $2 $6 500K
23 Claude Sonnet 4.6 Anthropic 1,438.07 1,431–1,445 $3 $15 1,000K
24 Grok 4.20 Multi Agent Beta 0309 xAI 1,436.86 1,430–1,444 $2 $6 2,000K
25 GLM 5 Zhipu AI / Z.ai 1,436.16 1,427–1,445 $0.48 $1.9 205K
26 Qwen3.6 Max Preview Alibaba (Qwen) 1,433.85 1,411–1,457 $1.3 $7.8 262K
27 MiMo V2.5 Pro Xiaomi 1,433.77 1,426–1,442 $0.44 $0.87 1,050K
28 Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) xAI 1,433.4 1,426–1,440 $2 $6 2,000K
29 Kimi K2.6 Moonshot AI (Kimi) 1,430.8 1,422–1,439 $0.22 $1.14 262K
30 Kimi K2.5 Thinking TEE Moonshot AI (Kimi) 1,423.84 1,417–1,431 $0.3 $1.9 256K
31 Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite Google DeepMind 1,420.66 1,403–1,439 $0.3 $2.5 1,049K
32 GPT-5.5 Instant OpenAI 1,420.47 1,411–1,430 $5 $30 400K
33 Gemma 4 31B Google DeepMind 1,417.17 1,398–1,436 $0.14 $0.4 262K
34 MiMo V2 Pro Xiaomi 1,416.27 1,406–1,427 $0.44 $0.87 1,049K
35 GLM 4.6 Zhipu AI / Z.ai 1,412.75 1,404–1,421 $0.29 $1.14 205K
36 Grok 4.1 xAI 1,412.53 1,406–1,419 $2 $10 200K
37 GPT-5.6 Terra OpenAI 1,410.72 1,395–1,426 $2 $12 1,050K
38 Hy3 Tencent (Hunyuan) 1,410.4 1,386–1,435 $0.13 $0.53 262K
39 Claude 4.1 Opus Anthropic 1,410.22 1,404–1,416 $15 $75 200K
40 GLM 5V Turbo Zhipu AI / Z.ai 1,409.81 1,394–1,425 $0.7 $3.1 203K
41 DeepSeek R1 0528 DeepSeek 1,409.54 1,397–1,422 $0.25 $0.25 164K
42 ChatGPT 4o Latest OpenAI 1,407.13 1,401–1,413 $5 $15 128K
43 Claude Sonnet 5 Anthropic 1,406.98 1,395–1,419 $2 $10 1,000K
44 Seed 2.0 Pro ByteDance (Doubao) 1,406.26 1,400–1,413 $0.5 $3 131K
45 DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus DeepSeek 1,405.52 1,378–1,433 $0.21 $0.79 164K
46 Gemma 4 26B-A4B Google DeepMind 1,404.92 1,386–1,424 $0.05 $0.29 262K
47 Qwen3.5 397B-A17B Alibaba (Qwen) 1,404.33 1,397–1,411 $0.6 $3.6 262K
48 DeepSeek V3.2 Exp DeepSeek 1,403.82 1,389–1,418 $0.22 $0.33 164K
49 MiniMax M3 MiniMax 1,403.76 1,394–1,413 $0.3 $1.2 1,049K
50 GPT-5.6 Luna OpenAI 1,403.67 1,388–1,419 $0.2 $1.2 1,050K
51 Qwen3.6 Plus Alibaba (Qwen) 1,403.57 1,395–1,412 $0.5 $3 1,000K
52 Gemini 2.5 Flash Google DeepMind 1,402.43 1,397–1,407 $0.3 $2.5 1,049K
53 GLM 4.7 Zhipu AI / Z.ai 1,402.36 1,389–1,416 $0.15 $0.8 205K
54 DeepSeek V4 Flash DeepSeek 1,402.07 1,394–1,410 $0.14 $0.28 1,049K
55 GPT-5.2 Chat OpenAI 1,401.99 1,393–1,411 $1.75 $14 128K
56 Qwen3 Max Preview Alibaba (Qwen) 1,400.79 1,391–1,411 $1.2 $6 256K
57 Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview Google DeepMind 1,400.66 1,394–1,408 $0.25 $1.5 1,049K
58 DeepSeek V3.2 DeepSeek 1,399.13 1,391–1,407 $0.28 $0.4 164K
59 Grok 4 xAI 1,398.43 1,390–1,407 $3 $15 256K
60 Inkling Thinking Machines Lab 1,395.2 1,379–1,412 $1.87 $4.68 1,049K
61 GLM 4.5 Zhipu AI / Z.ai 1,395.04 1,384–1,406 $0.2 $0.8 131K
62 GPT 4.5 Preview OpenAI 1,394.29 1,382–1,406 $75 $150 128K
63 Grok 4.1 Fast Reasoning xAI 1,393.1 1,386–1,400 $0.2 $0.5 2,000K
64 Hunyuan T1 Tencent (Hunyuan) 1,392.73 1,369–1,416 131K
65 Mistral Medium 3.1 Mistral AI 1,392.2 1,387–1,398 $0.4 $2 262K
66 MiMo V2.5 Xiaomi 1,391.79 1,384–1,400 $0.14 $0.28 1,050K
67 MiMo V2 Omni Xiaomi 1,391.39 1,380–1,403 $0.14 $0.28 262K
68 Mistral Large 3 Mistral AI 1,390.53 1,383–1,398 $0.5 $1.5 256K
69 Grok 4.3 xAI 1,388.05 1,380–1,396 $1.25 $2.5 1,000K
70 2025) Google DeepMind 1,387.99 1,379–1,397 $0.3 $2.5 1,049K
71 DeepSeek V3.1 DeepSeek 1,387.55 1,374–1,401 $0.2 $0.7 164K
72 Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking-2507 Alibaba (Qwen) 1,386.32 1,368–1,404 $0.1 $0.1 262K
73 Qwen3 Max 2025-09-23 Alibaba (Qwen) 1,382.56 1,366–1,400 $0.86 $3.43 258K
74 MiMo V2 Flash Xiaomi 1,378.57 1,371–1,386 $0.14 $0.28 262K
75 Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507 Alibaba (Qwen) 1,375.98 1,370–1,381 $0.1 $0.1 262K
76 Kimi K2 Thinking Turbo Moonshot AI (Kimi) 1,374.88 1,368–1,382 $1.15 $8 262K
77 Grok 4 Fast Reasoning xAI 1,374.71 1,363–1,386 $0.2 $0.5 2,000K
78 Claude 4 Opus Anthropic 1,374.61 1,366–1,383 $15 $75 200K
79 Claude Haiku 4.5 Anthropic 1,371.16 1,366–1,377 $1 $5 200K
80 Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct Alibaba (Qwen) 1,370.17 1,353–1,387 $0.4 $1.6 262K
81 Qwen3.5 122B-A10B Alibaba (Qwen) 1,369.14 1,360–1,379 $0.4 $3.2 262K
82 Mistral Medium 3.5 Mistral AI 1,368.5 1,354–1,383 $1.5 $7.5 262K
83 GPT 5 Chat OpenAI 1,367.89 1,358–1,377 $1.25 $10 128K
84 Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite Preview Google DeepMind 1,366.02 1,357–1,375 $0.1 $0.4 1,049K
85 DeepSeek Chat 0324 DeepSeek 1,364.71 1,357–1,373 $0.2 $0.6 164K
86 GPT 4.1 2025-04-14 OpenAI 1,363.66 1,356–1,371 $2 $8 1,048K
87 Qwen3.5 27B Alibaba (Qwen) 1,361.69 1,352–1,371 $0.3 $2.4 262K
88 o3 2025-04-16 OpenAI 1,359.4 1,352–1,367 $2 $8 200K
89 Hunyuan TurboS Tencent (Hunyuan) 1,358.18 1,343–1,374 131K
90 Step 3.5 Flash StepFun 1,355.92 1,349–1,363 $0.1 $0.3 262K
91 GPT-5.3 Chat (latest) OpenAI 1,355.23 1,346–1,364 $1.75 $14 128K
92 DeepSeek Reasoner DeepSeek 1,354.71 1,344–1,365 $0.55 $2.19 164K
93 MiniMax M2.7 MiniMax 1,353.29 1,345–1,361 $0.3 $1.2 205K
94 Kimi K2 0905 Preview Moonshot AI (Kimi) 1,349.52 1,334–1,365 $0.6 $2.5 262K
95 MiMo V2 Flash (Thinking) Xiaomi 1,348.09 1,334–1,362 $0.1 $0.31 256K
96 o1 2024-12-17 OpenAI 1,347.89 1,339–1,357 $15 $60 200K
97 Qwen3.5 35B A3B Alibaba (Qwen) 1,347.69 1,338–1,357 $0.25 $2 262K
98 Longcat Flash Chat Meituan 1,346.08 1,330–1,362 131K
99 Gemma 3 27B Google DeepMind 1,344.5 1,337–1,352 $0.03 $0.11 131K
100 Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking Alibaba (Qwen) 1,344.2 1,326–1,362 $0.4 $4 262K

The table scrolls sideways: not all columns fit.

The price is the lowest among the model's providers, base tier, without batch or discounted rates. Input and output are shown separately on purpose: for most models the output costs several times more than the input, and the final bill depends on which of the two your task has more of.

The ≈ sign marks models whose confidence interval overlaps that of the row above. Here there are 99 models — their order among themselves is not determined by the available data.

The confidence interval for half the models is wider than 18.5 points — that is about 11 adjacent rows of the table. Inside such a group the order is set not by the data but by who happened to vote this time; the data supports the difference between the top and the bottom of the list, but not the ordering of neighbouring places. Votes per model here — median 4,577: the fewer there are, the wider the interval.

Arena (LMArena) — license CC-BY-4.0 · primary source
По данным Arena (LMArena)