Blog and content writing: what it costs and which AI to use
Drafts, rewrites and edits of blog posts, product pages and newsletters. Marketing teams, agencies and solo creators producing content every week.
The short answer
At 120 articles a month, we estimate $0.083 on Ministral 3 8B 2512 (the cheapest model that cleared our quality bar), $0.525 on GLM 5.3, and $11.76 on GPT-5.5. The flagship costs 22x the middle pick. Judged on rewriting and summarising tasks: tone, accuracy and following the brief.
Simulate your blog and content writing
Pick a job, set how much of it you do, and see what every model would cost. Defaults are typical, not yours. Change them.
Prompt, history, documents
What the model writes
Advanced: caching, reasoning, retries, discounts
Share that can use cached-input prices where a model offers them
1 = none. 2 = hidden thinking doubles billed output
Extra calls on top of the base count
Batch jobs or committed spend. Check your provider; we assume none by default
Only used to compare with per-seat plans
Lowest benchmark score a model can have and still be picked. Higher is stricter.
Limit to certain providers
Untick any provider you cannot use, for data-residency, contract or policy reasons. Picks are recalculated.
120 articles a month, three ways to pay
Every model here cleared a score of 9.0 out of 10 on our rewrite, summarise benchmark tasks, ran without errors and fits a 16K-token window. 24 of 386 priced models qualify.
Cheapest model that clears the bar.
Ministral 3 8B 2512
- Per article
- $0.0007
- Benchmark
- 9.17 / 10 · 6 prompts
- Context
- 262K tokens
Priced near the middle of the models that clear the bar; best score there.
GLM 5.3
- Per article
- $0.0044
- Benchmark
- 9.50 / 10 · 6 prompts
- Context
- 1.05M tokens
What many people reach for first.
GPT-5.5
- Per article
- $0.098
- Benchmark
- 9.33 / 10 · 6 prompts
- Context
- 1.05M tokens
Choosing GPT-5.5 over GLM 5.3 costs $11.24 more a month, $135 a year (22x the price).
On our benchmark the middle pick scored higher (9.50 against 9.33). The extra money buys safety margin our benchmark cannot measure: it is 24 short prompts, and most passing models score near the top. If a wrong answer is costly for you, that margin can be worth it. Test on your own data before you decide.
If it grows
Pay-per-use cost scales in a straight line. Monthly cost at 1x, 3x, 10x and 100x today's volume.
| Model | 1x · 120 | 3x · 360 | 10x · 1,200 | 100x · 12K |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ministral 3 8B 2512 | $0.083 | $0.248 | $0.828 | $8.28 |
| GLM 5.3 | $0.525 | $1.57 | $5.25 | $52.49 |
| GPT-5.5 | $11.76 | $35.28 | $118 | $1,176 |
What a budget buys
- Ministral 3 8B 2512145Karticles a month, about 4,830 a day
- GLM 5.323Karticles a month, about 762 a day
- GPT-5.51,020articles a month, about 34 a day
Or a flat monthly plan
When people use the output directly, a per-seat plan can beat paying by the token. Plans have usage caps that change, so check the current limits.
- Google AI Plus$4.99 a monthPaying per use on GLM 5.3 costs the same above about 1,141 articles a month. You do 120, so per-use is cheaper at these numbers.
- ChatGPT Go$8.00 a monthPaying per use on GLM 5.3 costs the same above about 1,829 articles a month. You do 120, so per-use is cheaper at these numbers.
- Rytr$9.00 a monthPaying per use on GLM 5.3 costs the same above about 2,058 articles a month. You do 120, so per-use is cheaper at these numbers.
- Google AI Pro$19.99 a monthPaying per use on GLM 5.3 costs the same above about 4,570 articles a month. You do 120, so per-use is cheaper at these numbers.
Every model, priced for your workload
41 models, 11 hidden because their window is smaller than 16K tokens.
| Model | A month | Per article | Benchmark | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ministral 3 8B 2512 Mistral AIBudget pick | $0.083 | $0.0007 | 9.17 (6) | 262K |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 DeepSeek | $0.084 | $0.0007 | 9.33 (6) | 1.05M |
| Llama 4 Scout Meta | $0.133 | $0.0011 | 9.17 (6) | 1.31M |
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash DeepSeekbelow the bar | $0.190 | $0.0016 | 6.83 (6) | 1.05M |
| Qwen3.8 Flash Alibaba | $0.198 | $0.0017 | 9.00 (6) | 1M |
| GLM 5.3 Flash Z Ai | $0.211 | $0.0018 | 9.17 (6) | 1.05M |
| Mistral Small 4 Mistral AIa benchmark run failed | $0.245 | $0.0020 | 9.40 (5) | 262K |
| MiniMax M2.5 Minimax | $0.394 | $0.0033 | 9.17 (6) | 205K |
| Llama 4 Maverick Meta | $0.443 | $0.0037 | 9.33 (6) | 524K |
| GPT-5.4 Nano OpenAI | $0.488 | $0.0041 | 9.33 (6) | 400K |
| Muse Glimmer 30B Metabelow the bar | $0.491 | $0.0041 | 8.33 (6) | 131K |
| MiniMax M2.7 Minimax | $0.493 | $0.0041 | 9.17 (6) | 205K |
Benchmark = mean judge score out of 10 on the rewrite, summarise prompts of the Model Playground, with the number of prompts in brackets. Models marked n/a have no benchmark run, so we do not guess their quality. How the benchmark works.
What we assumed
- About 120 articles a month across a content team.
- Each article sends a brief, an outline and a style guide, around 2,500 tokens.
- Each draft is about 2,200 words, roughly 3,000 tokens, plus edits.
- 40% of input (the style guide) repeats.
These are typical numbers, not measurements of your business. Edit them in the simulator above.
What drives the cost
Output dominates: long drafts are billed at the output price, which is several times the input price.
Watch out for
- A writing subscription is usually far cheaper than the API for one person. The API wins when software does the writing at scale.
- Reasoning models add hidden output tokens to a job that does not need them. Use the reasoning slider to see the effect.
Questions people ask
How much will blog and content writing cost per month?
At 120 articles a month, we estimate $0.083 a month on Ministral 3 8B 2512, the cheapest model that clears our quality bar for this job. GLM 5.3 costs $0.525 and GPT-5.5 costs $11.76. These are estimates from the assumptions listed on this page, not a quote. Change the numbers to match your own volume.
What is the cheapest AI model for blog and content writing?
On current OpenRouter prices, Ministral 3 8B 2512 from Mistral AI is the cheapest model that cleared our bar of 9.0 out of 10, scoring 9.2/10 on 6 benchmark prompts for this kind of work. The benchmark is small, so treat it as a shortlist and test on your own data before switching.
Is it worth paying for a flagship model for blog and content writing?
On our benchmark, GPT-5.5 scored 9.3/10 on this kind of work, and a model priced near the middle of the models that cleared the bar, GLM 5.3, scored 9.5/10, while the flagship costs 22x as much. A flagship buys safety margin the benchmark cannot measure. If a wrong answer is expensive for you, that can be worth paying for. If not, you are probably overpaying.
What happens to the cost if blog and content writing grows ten times?
Pay-per-use pricing scales in a straight line, so ten times the articles is ten times the bill. Use the growth table on this page to see 3x, 10x and 100x for the same three models.
What makes blog and content writing expensive?
Output dominates: long drafts are billed at the output price, which is several times the input price.
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