Best of
Best AI for long documents
Most current top and fast models can read well over a thousand pages at once, so choose on price and quality: Claude Haiku 5.5 or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash for cheap passes, Claude Opus 5.5 for the hardest reading.
Costs here use the prices AI companies charge software developers, so they show relative cost, not your monthly bill. See what ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini charge you.
| Model and our take (editorial) | Type | Smartness | Reads at once* | Essay | Chat | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 5.5 The cheap and fast Claude. Great for summaries, quick questions and anything you do a lot of. | Everyday and cheap | ★★★★☆ | 1,500 pages | <1¢ | $0.13 | <1¢ |
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Very low price, can be downloaded and run yourself, and reads a very large amount at once. Hard to beat for big batches of work. | Everyday and cheapfree to download | ★★★☆☆ | 1,570 pages | <1¢ | $0.19 | $0.01 |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash Google's best fast model: a middle ground between cheap and capable. It understands audio and video too. | Everyday and cheap | ★★★★☆ | 1,570 pages | $0.01 | $1.08 | $0.03 |
| GPT-6.1 Sol Good value from OpenAI: strong at programming and working through long documents, at a mid-range price. | Most capable | ★★★★★ | 1,580 pages | $0.01 | $2.62 | $0.07 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 The sensible default: close to the top tier for writing, fixing code and everyday work, at about half the price of Claude Opus 5.5. | Most capable | ★★★★★ | 1,500 pages | $0.01 | $2.62 | $0.07 |
| Claude Opus 5.5 The strongest all-round pick when quality matters more than cost, especially for big, complicated jobs like long coding projects. | Most capable | ★★★★★ | 1,500 pages | $0.03 | $5.25 | $0.15 |
How we chose: How much a model can read at once is a size limit, not a promise that it stays accurate on a huge document.
Why each one
Claude Haiku 5.5
The cheap and fast Claude. Great for summaries, quick questions and anything you do a lot of.
The cheap and fast Claude. Great for summaries, quick questions and anything you do a lot of.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
Very low price, can be downloaded and run yourself, and reads a very large amount at once. Hard to beat for big batches of work.
Very low price, can be downloaded and run yourself, and reads a very large amount at once. Hard to beat for big batches of work.
Gemini 3.8 Flash
Google's best fast model: a middle ground between cheap and capable. It understands audio and video too.
Google's best fast model: a middle ground between cheap and capable. It understands audio and video too.
GPT-6.1 Sol
Good value from OpenAI: strong at programming and working through long documents, at a mid-range price.
Good value from OpenAI: strong at programming and working through long documents, at a mid-range price.
Claude Sonnet 5.5
The sensible default: close to the top tier for writing, fixing code and everyday work, at about half the price of Claude Opus 5.5.
The sensible default: close to the top tier for writing, fixing code and everyday work, at about half the price of Claude Opus 5.5.
Claude Opus 5.5
The strongest all-round pick when quality matters more than cost, especially for big, complicated jobs like long coding projects.
The strongest all-round pick when quality matters more than cost, especially for big, complicated jobs like long coding projects.