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Best Model for Cline

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the best model for most Cline work: it scores 61.8% on Terminal-Bench 4.0, about three points behind Claude Opus 5.5, at half the price ($5.33 per 100 coding-agent requests on our measured traffic). Cline can use separate models for Plan and Act mode, so a common setup is Opus 5.5 for planning and Sonnet 5.5 for the edits. On a tight budget, Claude Haiku 5.5 ($1.31) and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash ($0.67 at peak rates) cost a fraction as much but score well below on long agent tasks.

Read the full Cline review → · updated 2026-10-17

Sources: Cline Plan and Act docs · Terminal-Bench 4.0 leaderboard · Scale SWE-Bench Pro V2 · Anthropic on Haiku 5.5 · DeepSeek V4.1 Flash release · Cost per request methodology

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#1Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic · $4.40/1M · 1M ctx

Best overall. 61.8% on Terminal-Bench 4.0 and 95.8 on Scale's SWE-Bench Pro V2, with a 1M-token context and no long-prompt surcharge. A strong default for both Plan and Act.

Overall 96/100 · Value 59Full breakdown →
#2Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic · $8.80/1M · 1M ctx

Best for long agent runs. #1 on Terminal-Bench 4.0 at 64.9%. Worth it as the Plan-mode model or for long autonomous Act runs; every rate is double Sonnet 5.5's.

Overall 98/100 · Value 51Full breakdown →
#3Claude Haiku 5.5Anthropic · $0.22/1M · 1M ctx

Best value. Anthropic reports 39.2% on Terminal-Bench 4.0 at $0.10/$0.50 per million tokens. Prompts over 100K tokens cost five times as much, so it suits short Act steps better than long sessions.

Overall 82/100 · Value 97Full breakdown →
#4DeepSeek V4.1 FlashDeepSeek · $0.22/1M · 1.0M ctx

Budget pick. Open weights under the MIT license at $0.30/$1.20 per million tokens at peak hours and half off-peak. DeepSeek reports 42.3% on Terminal-Bench 4.0 for its October 17 update, up from 31.2%, so expect more retries on hard tasks.

Overall 77/100 · Value 93Full breakdown →
#5GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI · $4.40/1M · 1.1M ctx

OpenAI pick. 58.2% on Terminal-Bench 4.0 at the same $2/$10 list price as Sonnet 5.5. Prompts over 272K input tokens bill at $4/$15.

Overall 92/100 · Value 58Full breakdown →
#6GLM 5.3Z.AI · $1.50/1M · 1.0M ctx

Open-weight pick. The top open-weight model on Terminal-Bench 4.0 at 41.8%. Its $0.26 cache-read price makes cache-heavy Cline sessions cost about as much as Sonnet 5.5.

Overall 83/100 · Value 69Full breakdown →

What 100 Cline requests cost on each pick

A typical request sends 99,534 input tokens, 87% of them read from cache, and a median session runs 16 requests. Measured on pooled coding-agent requests through our gateway (79,301 requests from 75 users; Cline alone has fewer than 50 users, so its traffic is pooled), Sep 13 to Oct 12, 2026, priced at each vendor's list rates.

Model100 requestsMedian sessionMonth of regular use
Claude Sonnet 5.5$5.33$0.74$77.42
Claude Opus 5.5$10.66$1.47$155
Claude Haiku 5.5$1.31$0.096$17.73
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash$0.67$0.091$9.13
GPT-6.1 Sol$6.74$0.74$90.04
GLM 5.3$5.72$0.71$92.16

Month of regular use = the median user active on 5 or more days (1,478 requests in 30 days). Methodology · All models ranked by cost per request

Best model for Cline under $19, $49 or $99 a month

The highest-rated model whose list-price cost for a month of regular use (1,478 requests) stays under each budget. Heavier months cost proportionally more.

Monthly budgetBest model that fitsEst. month
Under $19Claude Haiku 5.5$17.73
Under $49Claude Haiku 5.5$17.73
Under $99Claude Sonnet 5.5$77.42

"Highest-rated" uses our editorial quality and agentic scores; candidates are current models with a checked vendor price.

FAQ

What is the best model for Cline?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 for most work: 61.8% on Terminal-Bench 4.0 at $2/$10 per million tokens. Claude Opus 5.5 (64.9%) is the step up for hard plans and long runs, and Claude Haiku 5.5 or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash keep costs down on routine edits.
Should I use different models for Plan and Act in Cline?
It often pays off. Turn on "Use different models for Plan and Act" in Cline's settings; Cline's docs suggest a stronger reasoning model for planning and a faster one for implementation, for example Opus 5.5 to plan and Sonnet 5.5 to act, or Sonnet 5.5 to plan and Haiku 5.5 to act on a budget.
Are Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.8 still good in Cline?
They work, but their replacements cost less: Sonnet 5.5 lists at $2/$10 per million tokens against Sonnet 4.6's $3/$15, and Opus 5.5 at $4/$20 against Opus 4.8's $5/$25. On Terminal-Bench 4.0, Opus 4.8 scores 23.6% to Opus 5.5's 64.9%.
Does Cline work with open-weight models?
Yes. Cline supports Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, AWS Bedrock and more than 30 other providers, so open-weight models such as GLM 5.3 and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash run through hosted APIs or your own server.
How much do 100 Cline requests cost?
At vendor list prices, 100 average coding-agent requests cost: Claude Sonnet 5.5 $5.33, Claude Opus 5.5 $10.66, Claude Haiku 5.5 $1.31, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash $0.67, GPT-6.1 Sol $6.74, GLM 5.3 $5.72. Measured on real coding-agent traffic through the Standard Compute gateway (Sep 13 to Oct 12, 2026), priced with each request's own token counts and cache reads.
What is the best model for Cline on a $19, $49 or $99 monthly budget?
For a month of regular use (1,478 requests, the median in our data), the highest-rated model that fits under $19: Claude Haiku 5.5 (about $17.73); under $49: Claude Haiku 5.5 (about $17.73); under $99: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (about $77.42). Heavier months cost proportionally more.

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