Sakana Fugu API Pricing (November 2026)
Sakana Fugu API prices run from $0.95 to $30 per million tokens across 3 current models. The cheapest is Sakana Namazu at $0.95 input and $4.00 output per million tokens. The flagship, Fugu Ultra, costs $5.00 input and $30.00 output per million tokens. Every rate below was read on Sakana AI's own pricing page, on the date shown in its row.
| Model | Input /M | Cache read /M | Output /M | Batch in /M | Batch out /M | Context | Status | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fugu Ultra fugu-ultra | $5.00$10.00 over 272K | $0.50−90% | $30.00$45.00 over 272K | — | — | 1M | Flagship | 2026-10-29 |
Fugu Max fugu-max | $2.00 | $0.25−88% | $6.00 | — | — | 1M | Current | 2026-10-29 |
Sakana Namazu sakana-namazu | $0.95 | $0.15−84% | $4.00 | — | — | 256K | Current | 2026-10-29 |
US dollars per million tokens, list rates on Sakana AI's own API. Cache read is the price of a cached input token. Batch is the asynchronous API, where the vendor offers one. The date in each row is when we last read it on the vendor's pricing page; it links to that page.
Sakana Fugu API monthly cost estimates
What light use (10M input + 2M output tokens a month), medium use (100M input + 20M output tokens a month), heavy use (1B input + 200M output tokens a month) costs on each current model, at list price with no caching and no batch discount.
| Model | Input / output per 1M | Light · 10M + 2M | Medium · 100M + 20M | Heavy · 1B + 200M |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sakana Namazu | $0.95 / $4.00 | $17.50 | $175 | $1,750 |
| Fugu Max | $2.00 / $6.00 | $32.00 | $320 | $3,200 |
| Fugu Ultra* | $5.00 / $30.00 | $110 | $1,100 | $11,000 |
* Assumes every prompt stays under 272K tokens; above that the model bills its higher long-prompt rates. Prompt caching and the Batch API cut these figures; the next sections show by how much. For your own token counts, use the LLM API cost calculator.
Sakana Fugu API price history
Sakana Fugu API price changes and releases
AI//COST tracks the Fugu tiers Sakana sells at a fixed token price - Fugu Ultra and, since September 2026, Fugu Max - plus the single model Sakana Namazu. Regular Fugu remains variable-rate because its price depends on the active underlying model tier.
$2/$6 with $0.25 cached at any context length; the fugu-ultra id moves to v2.0 on its unchanged card$0.95/$4.00 with $0.15 cached; built on Kimi K2.6 and priced at that base model's own rateOpenAI-compatible API for Fugu and Fugu Ultra.
PRICINGCanonical source for fixed Fugu Ultra token prices and variable Fugu billing notes.
TECHNICAL REPORTResearch background for learned orchestration and multi-agent coordination.
OpenAI
GPT-6 Sol lists at $2/$10 per million, the same input rate as Fugu Max and well under Fugu Ultra, without Sakana's orchestration on top. Sakana says GPT-6 Astra is not in Fugu Ultra v2's pool.
AGENT MODELAnthropic
Sakana benchmarks Fugu Max against Claude Sonnet 5 on price, and says Fugu Ultra v2 reaches its scores without Claude Fable 5 or Fable 5.1 in its pool - the closed models it is measured against rather than built on.
LONG CONTEXTGemini provides lower-cost long-context alternatives when a single-model workflow is enough.
OPEN-WEIGHT GIANTAlibaba (Qwen)
The Qwen (Tongyi Qianwen) model family from Alibaba Cloud's Tongyi Lab. First released in 2023, Qwen is the most-downloaded open-weight model family in the world — most tiers ship under Apache 2.0 on Hugging Face and ModelScope, while the proprietary Max tier is served through Alibaba Cloud's Model Studio.
GLM ARCHITECTZhipu (Z.ai / GLM)
The Beijing lab behind the GLM models, also operating internationally as Z.ai. Spun out of Tsinghua University in 2019, Zhipu ships strong coding/agentic models, multiple free tiers, and open weights — and was the first of China's "Six Tigers" to pursue an IPO. It also sits on the US Entity List.
MEDICAL-AI SPECIALISTBaichuan
The Beijing lab behind the Baichuan general models and the medical M-series. Founded in 2023 by Wang Xiaochuan (former CEO of search engine Sogou), Baichuan has pivoted hard toward healthcare AI — its open-source Baichuan-M3 tops several medical benchmarks — while keeping a general-purpose 4-series lineup.
Sakana Fugu API pricing FAQ
Practical notes on fixed Fugu Ultra prices, variable Fugu billing, and availability limits.
Q · 01 What Fugu prices are tracked here?
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Q · 02 Why is regular Fugu not shown as a normal fixed price?
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Q · 03 Does Fugu Ultra have a long-context surcharge?
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$10/M input, $45/M output and $1.00/M cached input for Fugu Ultra. Fugu Max has no such step: its $2/$6 card applies regardless of context length. Q · 04 What costs extra beyond the token rates?
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Q · 05 Is Sakana Fugu available in the EU/EEA?
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Sakana Fugu is positioned as "Multi-Agent System as a Model": one OpenAI-compatible model API that dynamically coordinates a pool of expert models for complex, multi-step tasks. The public page emphasizes coding, reasoning, Kaggle competitions, paper reproduction, cybersecurity analysis, and literature or patent investigations.
AI//COST tracks three token-priced rows here. Fugu Ultra carries a fixed pay-as-you-go card with a higher step above 272K of context; since September 11, 2026 the fugu-ultra alias serves v2.0 on that same card, while the dated fugu-ultra-20260615 id remains the vendor's name for v1.0. Its orchestration tokens are billed on top of visible input and output. Fugu Max, released the same day, is the cost-first tier: a flat card at any context length over Sakana's largest pool of open-weight and specialised models, with web search and fetches at $0.007 per call. Sakana Namazu, added in August 2026, is the lab's first in-house single model rather than an orchestrator: Japanese-specialised, built on Kimi K2.6, pay-as-you-go only, with built-in tools billed separately at $7.00 per 1,000 search calls and $0.12 per code-execution hour. Regular Fugu remains variable-rate: Sakana says a single active agent is billed at that underlying model rate, and multiple active agents are billed as one rate based on the top-tier model involved.