Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1 Pricing
All plans and pricing as of 2026-06-02
Microsoft Foundry
- ✓Launched 2026-06-02 (Microsoft Build) -- private preview on Foundry at launch
- ✓256K-token context window
- ✓Chat Completions API compatible
- ✓Public preview on MAI Playground coming soon
Third-party inference (OpenRouter / Fireworks / Baseten)
- ✓Generally available at launch through OpenRouter, Fireworks, and Baseten
- ✓Pay-as-you-go at each provider's per-token rate
- ✓No first-party consumer subscription -- API/developer access only
Is Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1 Worth the Price?
Value Score: 7.5/10
Overall Score: 7.5/10 · Azure / Microsoft Foundry shops that want a first-party reasoning model without an OpenAI dependency, and developers who want a cost-efficient reasoning tier (sparse MoE, 256K context) accessible today through OpenRouter, Fireworks, or Baseten.
MAI-Thinking-1 is the most strategically significant entry in Microsoft's June 2, 2026 Build model wave: it is Microsoft's first in-house reasoning model, and the published numbers (AIME 2025 97.0%, SWE-Bench Pro parity with leading models, a human-preference win over Claude Sonnet 4.6) are genuinely competitive for a 35B-active model. Combined with MAI-Code, MAI-Image, MAI-Voice, and MAI-Transcribe, it completes Microsoft's in-house coverage of every major modality and removes the last big OpenAI dependency at the reasoning tier. The open questions are pricing (undisclosed) and independent verification of the benchmarks -- but for Foundry customers this is now a real first-party reasoning option, and the day-one OpenRouter/Fireworks/Baseten availability makes it easy to try.
The Tier List Tuesday
Weekly newsletter: tier movers, new entrants, and the VS of the week. Built from our daily AI-tool sweeps. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
How Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1 Pricing Compares
| Tool | Free Tier | Starting Price | Value Score | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1(this tool) | No | Not disclosed | 7.5/10 | 7.5 |
| Muse Spark (Meta) | Yes | $0 | 10/10 | 8.8 |
| Claude (Anthropic) | Yes | $0 | 8/10 | 8.5 |
| Gemini (Google) | Yes | $0 | 9/10 | 8.3 |
| MiMo (Xiaomi) | Yes | $0 | 9/10 | 8.3 |
| Hunyuan 3 (Tencent Hy3) | Yes | $0 | 9.5/10 | 8.1 |