Education · best for
Top picks for Essay Grading (2026)
Consistent feedback on student writing. Ranked from 352 live models on the OpenRouter catalog, weighted for reasoning quality, context window, structured output.
What this is
A capability-matched shortlist, not a benchmark-tested winner. Models are scored by the fit of their declared specs (structured output, reasoning, context, modality, price) against Essay Grading. Pair with benchmark sources like Artificial Analysis or LMSys Arena before you ship. Full methodology →
| # | Model | Score | In / 1M | Out / 1M | Context | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Xiaomi: MiMo-V2.5xiaomi/mimo-v2.5 | 132 | $0.40 | $2.00 | 1,048,576 | Details → |
| 2 | Qwen: Qwen3.6 Plusqwen/qwen3.6-plus | 132 | $0.33 | $1.95 | 1,000,000 | Details → |
| 3 | xAI: Grok 4.20x-ai/grok-4.20 | 132 | $2.00 | $6.00 | 2,000,000 | Details → |
| 4 | OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Nanoopenai/gpt-5.4-nano | 132 | $0.20 | $1.25 | 400,000 | Details → |
| 5 | OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Miniopenai/gpt-5.4-mini | 132 | $0.75 | $4.50 | 400,000 | Details → |
| 6 | OpenAI: GPT-5.4openai/gpt-5.4 | 132 | $2.50 | $15.00 | 1,050,000 | Details → |
| 7 | Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Previewgoogle/gemini-3.1-flash-lite-preview | 132 | $0.25 | $1.50 | 1,048,576 | Details → |
| 8 | Qwen: Qwen3.5-Flashqwen/qwen3.5-flash-02-23 | 132 | $0.07 | $0.26 | 1,000,000 | Details → |
| 9 | Google: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview Custom Toolsgoogle/gemini-3.1-pro-preview-customtools | 132 | $2.00 | $12.00 | 1,048,576 | Details → |
| 10 | OpenAI: GPT-5.3-Codexopenai/gpt-5.3-codex | 132 | $1.75 | $14.00 | 400,000 | Details → |
| 11 | Google: Gemini 3.1 Pro Previewgoogle/gemini-3.1-pro-preview | 132 | $2.00 | $12.00 | 1,048,576 | Details → |
| 12 | Qwen: Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-02-15qwen/qwen3.5-plus-02-15 | 132 | $0.26 | $1.56 | 1,000,000 | Details → |
| 13 | Google: Gemini 3 Flash Previewgoogle/gemini-3-flash-preview | 132 | $0.50 | $3.00 | 1,048,576 | Details → |
| 14 | OpenAI: GPT-5.2openai/gpt-5.2 | 132 | $1.75 | $14.00 | 400,000 | Details → |
| 15 | xAI: Grok 4.1 Fastx-ai/grok-4.1-fast | 132 | $0.20 | $0.50 | 2,000,000 | Details → |
How we ranked these
For Essay Grading, we weight models on reasoning quality, context window, structured output. Higher means better. Scores combine each model's public metadata (context length, modality support, tool calling, structured output, reasoning capability) with live pricing. See full methodology →
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