Best LLMs for Data Analysis (2026)

Large language models that excel at interpreting datasets, writing analytical SQL and Python, surfacing insights, and explaining statistical results.

Why Claude Sonnet 4 is Best for Data Analysis

Claude Sonnet 4 ranks highest for this use case based on Arena ELO score, benchmark performance, and capability coverage. It provides the best combination of quality, speed, and reliability for these specific tasks.

Cost Estimate

For a typical workload (~50M tokens/month, 60% input / 40% output), the cheapest qualifying model (DeepSeek V3) costs approximately $21.40/month. The most capable model may cost more but delivers higher quality results.

Price vs Quality for Data Analysis

Anthropic
Deepseek
Google
Openai

Top 5 Models Compared

RankModelProviderInput $/MOutput $/MArena ELOSpeed (tok/s)
#1Claude Sonnet 4Anthropic$3.00$15.00128078
#2GPT-4oOpenAI$2.50$10.00126095
#3Gemini 2.5 ProGoogle$1.25$10.00143070
#4GPT-4.1OpenAI$2.00$8.00129088
#5DeepSeek V3DeepSeek$0.200$0.770128085
#1Claude Sonnet 4
Anthropic
ELO 1280
Input

$3.00/M

Output

$15.00/M

VisionJSON ModeFunctionsMultimodal
#2GPT-4o
OpenAI
ELO 1260
Input

$2.50/M

Output

$10.00/M

VisionJSON ModeFunctionsMultimodalCode Exec
#3Gemini 2.5 Pro
Google
ELO 1430
Input

$1.25/M

Output

$10.00/M

VisionJSON ModeFunctionsMultimodalCode Exec
#4GPT-4.1
OpenAI
ELO 1290
Input

$2.00/M

Output

$8.00/M

VisionJSON ModeFunctionsMultimodalCode Exec
#5DeepSeek V3
DeepSeek
ELO 1280
Input

$0.200/M

Output

$0.770/M

JSON ModeFunctions
#6o4-mini
OpenAI
ELO 1350
Input

$1.10/M

Output

$4.40/M

VisionJSON ModeFunctionsMultimodalCode Exec

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