Multimodal LLMs
Models that accept more than text: images, audio, video or PDF files, sorted by tier and price.
Multimodal models read screenshots, charts, scanned documents and photos directly, and some handle audio or video. That replaces separate OCR or transcription steps in many workflows.
Media inputs are billed as tokens too, and an image or a minute of video can cost far more than a paragraph of text. Check how each provider converts media to tokens before you process large volumes.
The shortlist
| Model | Tier | Weights | Context | Input / 1M | Output / 1M | Inputs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grok 4.7xAI | Frontier | Closed | 500K | $2 | $6 | Text, Images |
| Qwen3.8-MaxAlibaba (Qwen) | Frontier | Closed | 1M | $2 | $6 | Text, Images |
| Kimi K3Moonshot AI | Frontier | Open weights | 1M | $3 | $15 | Text, Images, Video |
| Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic | Frontier | Closed | 1M | $4 | $20 | Text, Images, PDF |
| Claude Fable 5.1Anthropic | Frontier | Closed | 1M | $10 | $50 | Text, Images, PDF |
| GPT-6 AstraOpenAI | Frontier | Closed | 1.05M | $10 | $50 | Text, Images |
| DeepSeek-V4.1-FlashDeepSeek | Advanced | Open weights | 1M | $0.30 | $1.20 | Text, Images |
| MiniMax-M3MiniMax | Advanced | Open weights | 1M | $0.30 | $1.20 | Text, Images, Video |
| Mistral Large 3Mistral AI | Advanced | Open weights | 256K | $0.50 | $1.50 | Text, Images |
| Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogle | Advanced | Closed | 1M | $0.75 | $3.75 | Text, Images, Video, Audio, PDF |
| Gemini 3.6 FlashGoogle | Advanced | Closed | 1M | $0.75 | $3.75 | Text, Images, Video, Audio, PDF |
| Mistral Medium 3.5Mistral AI | Advanced | Open weights | 256K | $1.50 | $7.50 | Text, Images |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic | Advanced | Closed | 1M | $2 | $10 | Text, Images, PDF |
| GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI | Advanced | Closed | 1.05M | $2 | $10 | Text, Images |
| Claude Haiku 5.5Anthropic | Efficient | Closed | 1M | $0.10 | $0.50 | Text, Images, PDF |
| GPT-6 LunaOpenAI | Efficient | Closed | 1.05M | $0.10 | $0.50 | Text, Images |
| Ministral 3 14BMistral AI | Efficient | Open weights | 256K | $0.20 | $0.20 | Text, Images |
| GLM-5.3-FlashZ.ai (Zhipu AI) | Efficient | Open weights | 1M | $0.15 | $0.50 | Text, Images, Video |
| Gemma 4 31BGoogle | Efficient | Open weights | 256K | $0.20 | $0.40 | Text, Images, Video |
| Mistral Small 4Mistral AI | Efficient | Open weights | 256K | $0.15 | $0.60 | Text, Images |
| Gemini 3.1 Flash-LiteGoogle | Efficient | Closed | 1M | $0.25 | $1.50 | Text, Images, Video, Audio, PDF |
| Muse Glimmer 30BMeta | Efficient | Open weights | 128K | $0.35 | $1.50 | Text, Images, Video |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteGoogle | Efficient | Closed | 1M | $0.30 | $2.50 | Text, Images, Video, Audio, PDF |
| Grok 4.3xAI | Efficient | Closed | 1M | $1.25 | $2.50 | Text, Images |
| Qwen3.8-27BAlibaba (Qwen) | Efficient | Open weights | 256K | $0.80 | $4 | Text, Images, Video |
| Amazon Nova 2 LiteAmazon (AWS) | Efficient | Closed | 1M | — | — | Text, Images, Video, PDF |
| Ministral 3 3BMistral AI | Compact | Open weights | 256K | $0.10 | $0.10 | Text, Images |
| Gemma 4 26B A4BGoogle | Compact | Open weights | 256K | $0.07 | $0.34 | Text, Images, Video |
| Ministral 3 8BMistral AI | Compact | Open weights | 256K | $0.15 | $0.15 | Text, Images |
| Qwen3.6-35B-A3BAlibaba (Qwen) | Compact | Open weights | 256K | $0.10 | $0.95 | Text, Images, Video |
| Gemma 4 E4BGoogle | Compact | Open weights | 128K | — | — | Text, Images, Audio, Video |
| Phi-4-reasoning-vision-15BMicrosoft (Phi) | Compact | Open weights | 16K | — | — | Text, Images |
| Mistral Large 4Mistral AI | Frontier | Closed | 1M | $1.36 | $4.18 | Text, Images |
| Gemini 3.1 ProGoogle | Frontier | Closed | 1M | $2 | $12 | Text, Images, Video, Audio, PDF |
| Muse Spark 1.3Meta | Advanced | Closed | 1M | $1.25 | $4.25 | Text, Images, Video, PDF |
| Grok Build 0.1xAI | Efficient | Closed | 250K | $1 | $2 | Text, Images |
Ordered by status, capability tier and then price. Tiers are our editorial grouping of provider positioning and public benchmark standings, not our own test results. How we rank.
How to choose
- Need charts, screenshots or scans? Any model with image input works; test on your own documents.
- Need audio or video understanding? Only a few models accept them natively; see the input column.
- For PDFs, check whether the model reads pages as images (layout-aware) or as extracted text.
Frequently asked questions
What is a multimodal LLM?
A multimodal LLM accepts inputs other than text, such as images, audio, video or documents, and reasons over them together with your text prompt. Most still output text, though some can also generate images or speech.
Which LLMs can watch video?
Only some models accept video input natively. In our directory, the input column shows which ones; others need you to extract frames or a transcript first.
Other shortlists
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