I've found MiniMax 2.7 pretty decent and even pay-as-you-go on OpenRouter, it's $0.30/mt in, and $1.20/mt out you can get some pretty heavy usage for between $5-$10. Their token subscription is heavily subsidized, but even if it goes up or away, its pretty decent. I'm pretty hopeful for these openweight models to become affordable at good enough performance.
I've found MiniMax 2.7 pretty decent and even pay-as-you-go on OpenRouter, it's $0.30/mt in, and $1.20/mt out you can get some pretty heavy usage for between $5-$10. Their token subscription is heavily subsidized, but even if it goes up or away, its pretty decent. I'm pretty hopeful for these openweight models to become affordable at good enough performance.