Best AI Model for Education & Tutoring
Tutoring students, explaining concepts, generating exercises, and adaptive learning. Needs clear explanations and patience.
Our Verdict
Claude Sonnet 4.6 gives the best step-by-step explanations — clear, patient, and adapts to the student's level. GPT-5 is a strong alternative with audio support for voice tutoring. For budget tutoring platforms, GPT-4o Mini handles Q&A and flashcard generation well at $0.15/$0.60. For math tutoring specifically, o3 with chain-of-thought reasoning at $0.40/$1.60 shows its work clearly.
Top Picks
Best at clear, patient explanations that adapt to student level
Best for: Interactive tutoring
Input
$3/1M
Output
$15/1M
Context
200K
Max Output
16K
Strong explanations + audio support for voice-based tutoring
Best for: Multimodal tutoring
Input
$1.25/1M
Output
$10/1M
Context
128K
Max Output
16K
Handles Q&A and exercise generation at minimal cost
Best for: Budget tutoring platforms
Input
$0.15/1M
Output
$0.6/1M
Context
128K
Max Output
16K
What Matters for Education
Key Factors
- •Explanation quality
- •MMLU-Pro score
- •Cost per session
- •Safety
Tips
- ✓Mid-tier models give great explanations without flagship pricing
- ✓Claude Sonnet excels at step-by-step explanations
- ✓Budget models work well for simple Q&A and flashcard generation
Full Ranking (All Compatible Models)
| Rank | Model | Input | Output | MMLU-Pro | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Gemini 2.5 FlashGoogle | $0.15 | $0.60 | 76% | 111 |
| #2 | GLM-4.7Zhipu AI | $0.60 | $2.20 | 84.3% | 109 |
| #3 | Gemini 3 FlashGoogle | $0.50 | $3.00 | 78% | 105 |
| #4 | GPT-4o MiniOpenAI | $0.15 | $0.60 | 68% | 103 |
| #5 | Claude Sonnet 4.6Anthropic | $3.00 | $15.00 | 86% | 103 |
| #6 | o3OpenAI | $0.40 | $1.60 | 87% | 101 |
| #7 | MiniMax M2.5MiniMax | $0.30 | $1.20 | 82% | 101 |
| #8 | GPT-5OpenAI | $1.25 | $10.00 | 88.5% | 100 |
| #9 | Gemini 2.5 ProGoogle | $1.25 | $10.00 | 87.5% | 99 |
| #10 | DeepSeek R1DeepSeek | $0.55 | $2.19 | 84% | 99 |
| #11 | o4-miniOpenAI | $1.10 | $4.40 | 85% | 95 |
| #12 | GLM-5Zhipu AI | $1.00 | $3.20 | 70.4% | 92 |
| #13 | DeepSeek V3DeepSeek | $0.14 | $0.28 | 78% | 88 |
| #14 | Gemini 3.1 ProGoogle | $2.00 | $12.00 | 91% | 88 |
| #15 | Gemini 3 ProGoogle | $2.00 | $12.00 | 89.8% | 88 |
| #16 | GPT-5.2 CodexOpenAI | $1.75 | $14.00 | 89% | 86 |
| #17 | GPT-5.3 CodexOpenAI | $2.00 | $16.00 | 90% | 84 |
| #18 | Claude Sonnet 4.5Anthropic | $3.00 | $15.00 | 84.5% | 77 |
| #19 | Mistral Large 3Mistral | $2.00 | $5.00 | 83% | 77 |
| #20 | Mistral Medium 3Mistral | $0.40 | $2.00 | 76% | 77 |
| #21 | Llama 4 MaverickMeta | $0.31 | $0.85 | 80.5% | 76 |
| #22 | Llama 4 ScoutMeta | $0.18 | $0.63 | 74.2% | 75 |
| #23 | Grok 4xAI | $3.00 | $15.00 | 86% | 68 |
| #24 | Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic | $0.80 | $4.00 | 69.4% | 68 |
| #25 | Claude Opus 4.6Anthropic | $5.00 | $25.00 | 89.5% | 66 |
| #26 | GPT-4oOpenAI | $2.50 | $10.00 | 80.5% | 66 |