Best AI Tools for Students in 2026

AI assistants for research, writing, studying and staying organised — many with generous free tiers.

24 tools ranked by quality score · 3 with a free tier.

1. 1

   Claude

   9.6Free tier$20/mo

   Anthropic · Chatbots & LLMs, Coding, Writing

   Claude is Anthropic's family of AI assistants, known for long-context reasoning, careful writing and strong coding ability. The Opus, Sonnet and Haiku tiers let you trade off intelligence, speed and cost. Claude excels at nuanced analysis, document understanding and agentic coding workflows, and is a favourite among developers and writers who value clarity.

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2. 2

   ChatGPT

   9.5Free tier$20/mo

   OpenAI · Chatbots & LLMs, Coding, Writing

   ChatGPT is OpenAI's flagship conversational AI, powering hundreds of millions of weekly users across web, mobile and API. Built on the GPT-4o and GPT-5 family of models, it handles text, images, voice and code in a single interface. With browsing, data analysis, custom GPTs and a vast plugin ecosystem, it remains the default assistant for most knowledge workers.

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3. 3

   Gemini

   9.2Free tier$20/mo

   Google DeepMind · Chatbots & LLMs, Coding, Writing

   Gemini is Google's natively multimodal model family, deeply integrated across Search, Workspace, Android and the Pixel line. Its standout feature is an enormous context window of up to one to two million tokens, ideal for analysing long videos, codebases and document sets. Gemini blends Google's real-time knowledge with strong reasoning and is available free in many products.

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4. 4

   Anthropic: Claude Sonnet 5

   9.2Paid$2.00/1M tokens

   Anthropic · Chatbots & LLMs

   Sonnet 5 is Anthropic's most capable Sonnet-class model, with frontier performance across coding, agents, and professional work. It supports adaptive thinking with selectable reasoning effort levels (low, medium, high, max,...

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5. 5

   Sakana: Fugu Ultra

   9.2Paid$5.00/1M tokens

   Sakana AI · Chatbots & LLMs

   Fugu Ultra is the higher-performance model in Sakana AI's Fugu family. Rather than a single monolithic model, Fugu is a learned multi-agent orchestration system: a language model trained to route...

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6. 6

   Anthropic: Claude Fable Latest

   9.2Paid$10.00/1M tokens

   ~anthropic · Chatbots & LLMs

   This model always redirects to the latest model in the Claude Fable family.

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7. 7

   Anthropic: Claude Fable 5

   9.2Paid$10.00/1M tokens

   Anthropic · Chatbots & LLMs

   Claude Fable 5 is a Mythos-class model from Anthropic, built for autonomous knowledge work and coding. It supports text, image, and file inputs with text output, with reasoning support and...

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8. 8

   Qwen: Qwen3.7 Plus

   9.2Paid$0.32/1M tokens

   Qwen · Chatbots & LLMs

   Qwen3.7-Plus is a cost-effective model in Alibaba's Qwen3.7 series. It supports text and image input with text output, building on the series' text capabilities with a comprehensive upgrade to its...

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9. 9

   MiniMax: MiniMax M3

   9.2Paid$0.30/1M tokens

   MiniMax · Chatbots & LLMs

   MiniMax-M3 is a multimodal foundation model from MiniMax. It supports text, image, and video inputs with text output, a 1M-token context window, and is suited for long-horizon agentic work, coding,...

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10. 10

    Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 (Fast)

    9.2Paid$10.00/1M tokens

    Anthropic · Chatbots & LLMs

    Fast-mode variant of [Opus 4.8](/anthropic/claude-opus-4.8) - identical capabilities with higher output speed at 2x pricing relative to regular Opus 4.8. Learn more in Anthropic's docs: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/fast-mode

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11. 11

    Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8

    9.2Paid$5.00/1M tokens

    Anthropic · Chatbots & LLMs

    Claude Opus 4.8 is Anthropic's most capable generally available model in the Opus family. It supports text, image, and file inputs with text output, with reasoning support and a 1M-token...

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12. 12

    Google: Gemini 3.5 Flash

    9.2Paid$1.50/1M tokens

    Google · Video & Audio, Chatbots & LLMs

    Gemini 3.5 Flash is Google's high-efficiency multimodal model, bringing near-Pro level coding and reasoning at Flash-tier cost and speed. It is highly optimized for coding proficiency and parallel agentic execution...

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13. 13

    Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.7 (Fast)

    9.2Paid$30.00/1M tokens

    Anthropic · Chatbots & LLMs

    Fast-mode variant of [Opus 4.7](/anthropic/claude-opus-4.7) - identical capabilities with higher output speed at premium 6x pricing. Learn more in Anthropic's docs: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/fast-mode

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14. 14

    Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite

    9.2Paid$0.25/1M tokens

    Google · Video & Audio, Chatbots & LLMs

    Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is Google’s GA high-efficiency multimodal model optimized for low-latency, high-volume workloads. It supports text, image, video, audio, and PDF inputs, and is designed for lightweight agentic...

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15. 15

    xAI: Grok 4.3

    9.2Paid$1.25/1M tokens

    xAI · Chatbots & LLMs

    Grok 4.3 is a reasoning model from xAI. It accepts text and image inputs with text output, and is suited for agentic workflows, instruction-following tasks, and applications requiring high factual...

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16. 16

    Google Gemini Pro Latest

    9.2Paid$2.00/1M tokens

    ~google · Video & Audio, Chatbots & LLMs

    This model always redirects to the latest model in the Google Gemini Pro family.

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17. 17

    Google Gemini Flash Latest

    9.2Paid$1.50/1M tokens

    ~google · Video & Audio, Chatbots & LLMs

    This model always redirects to the latest model in the Google Gemini Flash family.

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18. 18

    Anthropic Claude Sonnet Latest

    9.2Paid$2.00/1M tokens

    ~anthropic · Chatbots & LLMs

    This model always redirects to the latest model in the Anthropic Claude Sonnet family.

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19. 19

    OpenAI GPT Latest

    9.2Paid$5.00/1M tokens

    ~openai · Chatbots & LLMs

    This model always redirects to the latest model in the OpenAI GPT family.

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20. 20

    Qwen: Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20

    9.2Paid$0.30/1M tokens

    Qwen · Chatbots & LLMs

    Qwen3.5 Plus (April 2026) is a large-scale multimodal language model from Alibaba. It accepts text, image, and video input and produces text output, with a 1M token context window. This...

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21. 21

    Qwen: Qwen3.6 Flash

    9.2Paid$0.19/1M tokens

    Qwen · Chatbots & LLMs

    Qwen3.6 Flash is a fast, efficient language model from Alibaba's Qwen 3.6 series. It supports text, image, and video input with a 1M token context window. Tiered pricing kicks in...

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22. 22

    OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro

    9.2Paid$30.00/1M tokens

    OpenAI · Chatbots & LLMs

    GPT-5.5 Pro is OpenAI’s high-capability model optimized for deep reasoning and accuracy on complex, high-stakes workloads. It features a 1M+ token context window (922K input, 128K output) with support for...

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23. 23

    OpenAI: GPT-5.5

    9.2Paid$5.00/1M tokens

    OpenAI · Chatbots & LLMs

    GPT-5.5 is OpenAI’s frontier model designed for complex professional workloads, building on GPT-5.4 with stronger reasoning, higher reliability, and improved token efficiency on hard tasks. It features a 1M+ token...

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24. 24

    Xiaomi: MiMo-V2.5

    9.2Paid$0.10/1M tokens

    Xiaomi · Video & Audio, Chatbots & LLMs

    MiMo-V2.5 is a native omnimodal model by Xiaomi. It delivers Pro-level agentic performance at roughly half the inference cost, while surpassing MiMo-V2-Omni in multimodal perception across image and video understanding...

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