Solar Mini
Analysis Summary
Solar Mini is a January 2024 release from Upstage, priced at $0.15 per million tokens for both input and output. Its intelligence index of 11.9 and agentic index of 20.2 place it firmly in the entry-level tier, with a tau2 score of 0.202 confirming limited reliability in structured or multi-step workflows.
For businesses, this model is only appropriate for the most basic text tasks: simple classification, short-form generation, or lightweight summarisation where cost is the overriding concern. It lacks the reasoning depth, coding capability, and instruction-following precision needed for professional or client-facing outputs.
The pricing is attractive, but the capability ceiling is low. Teams looking for a cost-efficient small model should compare against more recent releases that offer meaningfully better performance at similar or only slightly higher price points.
Assessed June 6, 2026
Editorial notes
Solar Mini from Upstage is a low-cost, early 2024 model with limited reasoning and agentic capability, suited only to the simplest text tasks at $0.15/1M tokens.
Rankings consider pricing, capabilities, benchmarks, and real-world applicability and are refreshed as new models launch. Feedback?
Performance Profile
How Solar Mini compares
Solar Mini ranks #292 of 378 AI models we track for overall intelligence, #176 of 289 for agentic tasks. At $0.15 per million input tokens it is cheaper than 57% of comparable models.
Benchmark Scores
Intelligence
Technical
Benchmark data from Artificial Analysis and Hugging Face
How does Solar Mini stack up?
Compare side-by-side with other professional models.
Model Information
| Provider | Upstage |
| Release Date | January 25, 2024 |
| Status | Active |
Pricing
| Token Type | Cost per 1M tokens | Cost per 1K tokens |
|---|---|---|
| Input | $0.15 | $0.000150 |
| Output | $0.15 | $0.000150 |
Frequently asked questions about Solar Mini
How much does Solar Mini cost?
Solar Mini costs $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens.
Who created Solar Mini?
Solar Mini is developed by Upstage and was released on January 25, 2024.
