Tested muse spark 1.2 because it was rated so high on design arena, and I've missed a model that can do nice UI in the hands of an operator with no UI skills.

It produced worse UI mockups than GPT and GPT models are already the bottom of the barrel here. The only model that performed well was Kimi K3 - insanely good, but expensive.

It's hard to trust benchmarks these days.

I found the sweetspot here: GPT-5.6 Sol (high) 57.3 $0.52 7,545

(Edit: TLDR; It gets on with it, makes the same mistakes you would, without overthinking and overengineering, most of the time)

Cost per task:

  Model                        Score    Cost / Task    Output Tokens / Task
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh)        56.8          $0.40                  30,430
  Gemini 3.7 Flash (high)       56.0          $0.40                  36,847
  GPT-5.6 Terra (max)           56.6          $0.51                  20,838
  GPT-5.6 Sol (high)            57.3          $0.52                   7,545
  GLM-5.2 (max)                 53.0          $0.56                  32,200
  GLM-5.3 (max)                 59.5          $0.68                  41,107
  GPT-5.5 (xhigh)               56.3          $0.69                  16,893
  Grok 4.6 (high)               60.9          $0.84                  21,735
  Kimi K3 (max)                 59.7          $0.84                  25,474
  GPT-5.6 Sol (xhigh)           59.0          $0.87                  11,098
  Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B             57.7          $0.95                  32,472
  Claude Opus 5 (medium)        58.6          $0.98                  12,459
  Qwen3.8 Max                   58.1          $1.13                  38,287
  GPT-5.6 Sol (max)             60.9          $1.23                  16,879
  Claude Opus 5 (high)          61.5          $1.52                  21,353
  Claude Opus 4.8 (max)         57.3          $1.65                  33,557

  Model                        Score    Cost / Task    Output Tokens / Task
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Claude Opus 5 (high)          61.5          $1.52                  21,353
  GPT-5.6 Sol (max)             60.9          $1.23                  16,879
  Grok 4.6 (high)               60.9          $0.84                  21,735
  Kimi K3 (max)                 59.7          $0.84                  25,474
  GLM-5.3 (max)                 59.5          $0.68                  41,107
  GPT-5.6 Sol (xhigh)           59.0          $0.87                  11,098
  Claude Opus 5 (medium)        58.6          $0.98                  12,459
  Qwen3.8 Max                   58.1          $1.13                  38,287
  Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B             57.7          $0.95                  32,472
  Claude Opus 4.8 (max)         57.3          $1.65                  33,557
  GPT-5.6 Sol (high)            57.3          $0.52                   7,545
  Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh)        56.8          $0.40                  30,430
  GPT-5.6 Terra (max)           56.6          $0.51                  20,838
  GPT-5.5 (xhigh)               56.3          $0.69                  16,893
  Gemini 3.7 Flash (high)       56.0          $0.40                  36,847
  GLM-5.2 (max)                 53.0          $0.56                  32,200

What’s the reseller situation?

they make a ton of sense for tasks that are achievable with no prob by all models - e.g. writing scripts that do a specific thing etc.

It's also starting to go beyond reasoning and it's becoming much more problematic. Reasoning is one thing, but codex, for example now encrypts agent-to-agent messages as well, and compaction. I've no idea what subagents are instructed to do, or what they reported back in native codex.

The only thing that's keeping me is the value $200 subscription provides. If that value disappears, I see no reason why not to switch to something that isn't a black box.

Aa also benchmarked k3 at max

Is the conventional wisdom that the subscription price/token is better than the API price/token not valid any more? Or is access to model diversity worth the increased per token costs?

Same here. I'm switching to the Codex plan. It just doesn't go very far now. Especially if you use fable at all.

GLM subscription is better than API, but significantly worse than Codex, even when used outside peak hours.

Not with my credit!