Multimodal support matrix (major LLMs)
All models support text in/out. The table shows non-text only. Two columns: Input and Output. An icon means the model handles that format. A note means it is conditional (details below). No icon means unsupported. $ are USD / 1M tokens (standard text rates).
Image🔊 Audio🎬 Video PDF📝 DOCX📊 XLSX📑 PPTX
| Model | Input | Output | In $/M | Out $/M |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 3.8 Flash GooglePricing · Document | ImageAudioVideoPDFDOCXXLSXPPTXtext extract | — | $0.75→$1.50 | $3.75→$7.50 |
| Gemini 3.7 Flash GooglePricing · Document | ImageAudioVideoPDFDOCXXLSXPPTXtext extract | — | $0.75→$1.50 | $3.75→$7.50 |
| Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite GooglePricing (audio 2×) | ImageAudioVideoPDFDOCXXLSXPPTXtext extract | — | $0.25 | $1.50 |
| GPT-6 Astra OpenAIModel docs (input: text/image) | Image | Imagevia tool | $10 | $50 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol OpenAIModel docs | Image | Imagevia tool | $4 | $20 |
| GPT-5.6 Luna OpenAIModel docs | Image | Imagevia tool | $0.20 | $1.20 |
| Claude Fable 5.1 AnthropicPDF support | ImagePDF | — | $10 | $50 |
| Claude Mythos 5.1 AnthropicPDF support | ImagePDF | — | $10 | $50 |
| Qwen3.8-Flash AlibabaQwenCloud (image + video understanding) | ImageVideo | — | $0.15 | $0.47 |
| GLM 5.3 Flash Z.aiGLM docs (Video/Image; File is via tools — omitted) | ImageVideo | — | $0.15 | $0.50 |
| Grok 4.6 xAIModel docs (Text, Image) | Image | — | $2 | $6 |
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash DeepSeekVision · Pricing (V4 Pro had no vision support) | Image | — | $0.15→$0.30 | $0.60→$1.20 |
Support flags verified against primary sources (2026-09-06). This table lists only formats you can pass as native binary to the API (definite yes only). Tool-based text extraction is possible on any model, so it is omitted. Qwen3.8-Flash documents image and video understanding, so those icons are shown. Direct audio/PDF/Office ingest is not documented there, so omitted. Claude PDF is official visual understanding; DOCX/XLSX need conversion first, so omitted.
What the notes mean
- Gemini DOCX / XLSX / PPTX = text extraction. Official Document understanding does visual understanding for PDF only (layout, charts, tables as images). Word / Excel / PowerPoint are ingested as extracted text, not the same visual parse as PDF. You can send a file, but it is not “PDF-equivalent”.
- GPT-6 Astra / GPT-5.6 Sol / Luna image output = via tool. Official model pages list text as the native output. Images require a separate Responses API image generation tool (GPT-Image 2.0) call. The model does not emit pixels itself.
- GLM 5.3 Flash PDF / Office are omitted. Official How to Use documents native input as image_url (images) and video. The File modality and Office deliverables are “call tools, then process/produce documents” — not native binary ingest. Any model can do that with a text-extract tool, so this table treats it as unsupported.
Primary sources (official URLs)
- Google pricing: ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing — Gemini 3.8/3.7 Flash intro $0.75/$3.75 (through 2026-12-31), then $1.50/$7.50. 3.1 Flash-Lite is $0.25 for text/image/video and $0.50 for audio.
- Google documents: Document understanding — PDF is visual understanding. Non-PDF is text extraction.
- OpenAI GPT-6 Astra: developers.openai.com/.../gpt-6-astra — Input modalities: text, image. $10 / $50.
- OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol: gpt-5.6-sol · Luna: gpt-5.6-luna
- Anthropic PDF: PDF support — All active models support PDF. xlsx/docx need conversion first.
- Qwen3.8-Flash: qwencloud.com/models/qwen3.8-flash — “Non-Real-Time Image Understanding” / “Non-Real-Time Video Understanding”. Pricing from the official blog qwen.ai/blog (input $0.15 / output $0.47).
- Z.ai GLM-5.3-Flash: docs.z.ai/.../glm-5.3-flash — How to Use:
image_url. File / Office deliverables are tool-calling (not native binary ingest — omitted). - xAI Grok 4.6: docs.x.ai/.../grok-4.6 — Modalities: Text, Image → Text. $2 / $6. Audio/video are separate APIs.
- DeepSeek Vision: Vision — native image input on
deepseek-flash(V4.1 Flash, since 2026-09-10). The legacydeepseek-v4-flash-vision-expand V4 Pro are retired or consolidated. Pricing: Models & Pricing.
Modality-specific billing rules you should know
The same “1M tokens” can price differently by modality or be tokenized. These are the biggest pitfalls.
Live streaming / speech / image / video generation are separate models
Core LLMs output text only because each non-text output lives in its own model. Learn them by use case.
| Use case | Example model | In / Out | Pricing (USD) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Realtime speech dialogue Live / Realtime | Gemini 3.1 Flash Live Preview Gemini 2.5 Flash Native Audio | audio⇄audio | 3.1 Live: audio in $3.00 · image/video in $1.00 / audio out $12.00 | |
| Realtime speech dialogue OpenAI Realtime / Audio | gpt-realtime-2.1 gpt-audio-1.5 | audio⇄audio (native) | Realtime: text $4/$24 · audio $32/$64 Audio: text $2.5/$10 · audio $32/$64 | OpenAI Realtime · Audio |
| Image generation / edit | Gemini 3.1 Flash Image（Nano Banana 2） Gemini 3 Pro Image（Nano Banana Pro） | image→image | Flash Image: $60/M output images (1K=$0.067) · Pro Image: $120/M | |
| Speech generation (TTS) | Gemini 3.1 Flash TTS Preview | text→audio | text in $1.00 / audio out $20.00 | |
| Video generation | Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash / Veo 3.1 | text/image→video | Omni: video out 5,792 tok/s (720p) ≈$0.10/s · Veo: $0.40/s |
🎤 OpenAI caveat: GPT-6 Astra and the GPT-5.6 line themselves don’t accept audio/video input, but you can do audio dialogue/generation with gpt-realtime-2.1 / gpt-audio-1.5 (native audio in/out) and image generation via the Responses API image tool (GPT-Image 2.0). Pick by “what I feed in” and “what I want out” as a pair, not by a single model name.
Which model, by the in/out you want
A one-line answer for typical multimodal patterns.
All information here was verified on 2026-09-06 against official pricing pages and docs (Google AI · Google Document understanding · OpenAI · Anthropic PDF support · QwenCloud · xAI · DeepSeek Vision · Z.ai). Prices and support change without notice — always re-check the official pages before use.