Professional · best for
Best AI model for Scientific Research (2026)
Reading papers, designing experiments, interpreting results. Ranked from 346 live models on the OpenRouter catalog, weighted for reasoning quality, context window.
| # | Model | Score | In / 1M | Out / 1M | Context | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Qwen: Qwen3.6 Plusqwen/qwen3.6-plus | 136 | $0.33 | $1.95 | 1,000,000 | Try → |
| 2 | xAI: Grok 4.20x-ai/grok-4.20 | 136 | $2.00 | $6.00 | 2,000,000 | Try → |
| 3 | OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Nanoopenai/gpt-5.4-nano | 136 | $0.20 | $1.25 | 400,000 | Try → |
| 4 | OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Miniopenai/gpt-5.4-mini | 136 | $0.75 | $4.50 | 400,000 | Try → |
| 5 | OpenAI: GPT-5.4openai/gpt-5.4 | 136 | $2.50 | $15.00 | 1,050,000 | Try → |
| 6 | Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Previewgoogle/gemini-3.1-flash-lite-preview | 136 | $0.25 | $1.50 | 1,048,576 | Try → |
| 7 | Qwen: Qwen3.5-Flashqwen/qwen3.5-flash-02-23 | 136 | $0.07 | $0.26 | 1,000,000 | Try → |
| 8 | Google: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview Custom Toolsgoogle/gemini-3.1-pro-preview-customtools | 136 | $2.00 | $12.00 | 1,048,576 | Try → |
| 9 | OpenAI: GPT-5.3-Codexopenai/gpt-5.3-codex | 136 | $1.75 | $14.00 | 400,000 | Try → |
| 10 | Google: Gemini 3.1 Pro Previewgoogle/gemini-3.1-pro-preview | 136 | $2.00 | $12.00 | 1,048,576 | Try → |
| 11 | Qwen: Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-02-15qwen/qwen3.5-plus-02-15 | 136 | $0.26 | $1.56 | 1,000,000 | Try → |
| 12 | Google: Gemini 3 Flash Previewgoogle/gemini-3-flash-preview | 136 | $0.50 | $3.00 | 1,048,576 | Try → |
| 13 | OpenAI: GPT-5.2openai/gpt-5.2 | 136 | $1.75 | $14.00 | 400,000 | Try → |
| 14 | Amazon: Nova 2 Liteamazon/nova-2-lite-v1 | 136 | $0.30 | $2.50 | 1,000,000 | Try → |
| 15 | xAI: Grok 4.1 Fastx-ai/grok-4.1-fast | 136 | $0.20 | $0.50 | 2,000,000 | Try → |
How we ranked these
For Scientific Research, we weight models on reasoning quality, context window. Higher means better. Scores combine OpenRouter's model metadata (context length, modality support, tool calling, structured output, reasoning capability) with public pricing. See full methodology →
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