Granite 4.2 8b API Pricing
Granite 4.2 8b has tracked API rates of $0.06 per 1M input tokens and $0.25 per 1M output tokens. Cached input is billed at $0.015 per 1M tokens. Rates are in USD from the AI IQ dataset; see the Granite 4.2 8b model profile for capability scores.
Price List
| Rate | Price (USD) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Input | $0.06 | per 1M tokens |
| Output | $0.25 | per 1M tokens |
| Cached input (read) | $0.015 | per 1M tokens |
| Blended input + output | $0.31 | 1M in + 1M out at list price |
| Context window | 131K tokens |
Pricing References and Billing Caveats
These are the tracked rates, not a live quote. Hosted-provider choice, region, long-context tiers, caching, batch discounts, and temporary promotions can change the actual bill. Open-weight availability does not mean hosted inference is free. Workload examples assume the listed standard input and output rates, with no cache hits or discounts.
Publisher-reported pricing notes
- The model may produce inaccurate, biased, or unsafe responses, and IBM recommends deployment alongside additional safety controls.
Official release and model references
These references document the model and its release; not every reference is a pricing table. Confirm the applicable endpoint and billing tier with your inference provider before purchase.
What a Workload Costs
Computed straight from the list prices above — token counts are illustrative workload sizes, not measurements of Granite 4.2 8b.
| Workload | Cost | Tokens |
|---|---|---|
| Short chat turn | $0.00018 | 1K in / 500 out |
| Summarize a long document | $0.00650 | 100K in / 2K out |
| Agentic coding session | $0.055 | 500K in / 100K out |
| 1M input + 1M output tokens | $0.310 | 1M in / 1M out |
Effective Cost
In AI IQ's scoring, Granite 4.2 8b's list price is adjusted by a token-usage multiplier of 0.81 (measured from real benchmark runs), giving an effective cost of $0.2511 per 1M input + output tokens. That places it #11 of 146 models on the effective-cost ranking (lower is cheaper). Some models spend far more tokens than others on the same task, so effective cost compares what a unit of work really costs. Method details are on the methodology page; see all models on the cost charts and the falling cost of intelligence over time.
Cheaper Alternatives at Similar Capability
Models with a lower effective cost that score within a few IQ points of Granite 4.2 8b (IQ 95), or better.
| Model | Provider | IQ | Effective Cost / 1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| gemma-4-31b | 101 | $0.2162 | |
| gemma-4-26b | 100 | $0.2162 | |
| gemma-4-12b | 99 | $0.184 | |
| nemotron-3-nano | US (Other) | 99 | $0.2143 |
| qwen3.5-4b | Alibaba | 92 | $0.1232 |