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Best AI APIs for image understanding
Models you can call through a paid API, ranked from public benchmarks, with their price in this task’s unit.
STop ranked: Qwen3.8-Max (Alibaba (Qwen)), 1,301 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control).31 options listed · data verified 19 Oct 2026
Ranked list
| Tier | Name | Approach | Runs | Rated by | Price | Skill | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | Qwen3.8-Max Alibaba (Qwen) | Models | Cloud | 1,301 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $3/M tokens | — | |
| S |  GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI | Models | Cloud | 1,294 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $4/M tokens | — | vs Qwen3.8-Max |
| S |  Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic | Models | Cloud | 1,293 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $8/M tokens | — | vs Qwen3.8-Max |
| S | Muse Spark 1.3 Meta | Models | Cloud | 1,290 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $2/M tokens | — | vs Qwen3.8-Max |
| S |  Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogle | Models | Cloud | 1,289 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $1.5/M tokens | — | vs Qwen3.8-Max |
| S | Claude Fable 5.1 Anthropic | Models | Cloud | 1,286 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $20/M tokens | — | vs Qwen3.8-Max |
| S | GPT-6 Astra OpenAI | Models | Cloud | 1,286 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $20/M tokens | — | vs Qwen3.8-Max |
| S | Gemini 3.1 Pro (Preview) Google | Models | Cloud | 1,280 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $4.5/M tokens | — | |
| S |  GLM-5.3-FlashZ.ai | Models | Local | 1,273 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | ~185 GB VRAM | — | |
| A | Claude Sonnet 5.5 Anthropic | Models | Cloud | 1,266 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $4/M tokens | — | |
| A | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite Google | Models | Cloud | 1,266 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $0.85/M tokens | — | |
| A |  Qwen3.7-PlusAlibaba (Qwen) | Models | Cloud | 1,264 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $0.56/M tokens | — | |
| A |  Gemma 4 (31B)Google DeepMind | Models | Local | 1,262 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | ~19 GB VRAM | — | |
| A |  DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017DeepSeek | Models | Local | 1,260 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | ~320 GB VRAM | — | |
| A |  Step 5 PreviewStepFun | Models | Local | 1,250 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | ~346 GB VRAM | — | |
| A |  Grok 4.7xAI | Models | Cloud | 1,248 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $3/M tokens | — | |
| A |  MiMo-V2.6-FlashXiaomi | Models | Local | 1,248 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | ~178 GB VRAM | — | |
| A | MiMo-V2.6-Pro Xiaomi | Models | Local | 1,246 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | ~585 GB VRAM | — | |
| A |  Qwen3.8-27BAlibaba (Qwen) | Models | Local | 1,244 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | ~17 GB VRAM | — | |
| A | GPT-6 Luna OpenAI | Models | Cloud | 1,241 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $0.2/M tokens | — | |
| A |  Muse Spark Open (816B-A42B)Meta | Models | Local | 80.9% on Artificial Analysis MMMU-Pro (independent evaluation) | ~470 GB VRAM | — | |
| A |  Kimi K3Moonshot AI | Models | Local | 80.5% on Artificial Analysis MMMU-Pro (independent evaluation) | ~1600 GB VRAM | — | |
| A |  MiniMax-M3MiniMax | Models | Local | 1,236 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | ~245 GB VRAM | — | |
| A |  GLM-5V-TurboZ.ai | Models | Cloud | 1,231 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | $1.9/M tokens | — | |
| A |  Ling-3.0-flash-VLinclusionAI | Models | Local | 79% on Artificial Analysis MMMU-Pro (independent evaluation) | ~73 GB VRAM | — | |
| B |  Inkling SmallThinking Machines Lab | Models | Local | 1,208 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | ~159 GB VRAM | — | |
| B |  Mistral Medium 3.5Mistral AI | Models | Local | 1,200 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | ~75 GB VRAM | — | |
| B |  Mistral Large 4 (preview)Mistral AI | Models | Cloud | 76.4% on Artificial Analysis MMMU-Pro (independent evaluation) | $2.06/M tokens | — | |
| B | Muse Glimmer 30B Meta | Models | Local | 74.3% on Artificial Analysis MMMU-Pro (independent evaluation) | ~19 GB VRAM | — | |
| B | Inkling Thinking Machines Lab | Models | Local | 73.5% on Artificial Analysis MMMU-Pro (independent evaluation) | ~557 GB VRAM | — | |
| B |  Llama 4 MaverickMeta | Models | Local | 1,145 on LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control) | ~230 GB VRAM | — |
Tiers come only from public benchmarks (LMArena Vision Arena (overall, style control), Artificial Analysis MMMU-Pro (independent evaluation)); tools without a result of their own inherit the tier of the best model they offer. How we rank.