The normalized average price of domestic large-model token services in China rose from 6.8 yuan in the second half of 2025 to 13.46 yuan so far in 2026 - an increase of nearly 100% - according to the Large-Model Token Service Performance Monitoring Report (2026) jointly released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology's AI institute and partners.
The report, disclosed by Yicai on October 23, shows that while Chinese model pricing has climbed, it remains far below overseas levels: typical overseas models released in 2026 carry an average normalized price of about 117.8 yuan, roughly nine times the domestic rate.
The price convergence reflects both rising compute and data costs and a maturing market where vendors are moving away from pure subsidy-driven 'token wars' toward sustainable, value-based pricing as enterprise adoption deepens.
Analysts say the narrowing but persistent gap underscores China's cost advantage in AI inference, a key reason overseas developers and startups have gravitated to Chinese open-source and commercial models.
Source: Yicai / CAICT (paraphrased and translated from Chinese financial-media reporting; reprinted for informational purposes with attribution).
