API cost decision in 10 seconds

NewEmber-1 vs Fugu Ultra v2

Pick Ember-1 when budget and context both matter.

Page updated: 2026-09-24T06:07:49Z Data confirmed: 2026-09-24T07:07:51Z Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output

Budget verdict

Pick Ember-1 when budget and context both matter.

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Ember-1 is estimated at $10.5 vs $20 for Fugu Ultra v2, saving $9.5 (47.5% lower).

Cost-first pickEmber-1

Context-first pickEmber-1

Sample savings$9.547.5%

10x traffic gap$95

Ember-1 is cheaper on the standard workload and also has the larger context window. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $95. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.

Cost sensitivity

Workload Sensitivity

Same prices, different token mixes.

Ember-1 stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.

Workload shape	Token mix	Better pick	Ember-1	Fugu Ultra v2
Input-heavy / RAG	5M input + 500K output	Ember-1	$22.5	$40
Balanced workload	1M input + 1M output	Ember-1	$18	$35
Output-heavy chatbot	1M input + 5M output	Ember-1	$78	$155

Cheaper input Ember-1 $3 vs $5 / 1M

Ember-1 is $2 cheaper per 1M input tokens (40% lower; 1.67x difference).

Cheaper output Ember-1 $15 vs $30 / 1M

Ember-1 is $15 cheaper per 1M output tokens (50% lower; 2x difference).

Larger context Ember-1 1.05M vs 1M

Ember-1 has 48.58K more context (1.05x larger).

Sample workload Ember-1 $10.5 vs $20

Ember-1 is $9.5 cheaper on the standard workload (47.5% lower).

Estimate your workload cost

Your Workload Cost

Prices are normalized to USD per 1M tokens.

Monthly input tokens Monthly output tokens

Ember-1 Calculating… Estimated API cost

Fugu Ultra v2 Calculating… Estimated API cost

Cheaper for this workload Calculating… Difference: calculating…

This estimate uses normalized public API pricing per 1M tokens. It is a planning aid, not a billing quote. Verify provider pricing, limits, and terms before production use.

Quick Decision

Verdict

Ember-1 has the lower input price; Ember-1 has the lower output price; Ember-1 offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, Ember-1 is cheaper for the standard workload.

For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $10.5 for Ember-1 and $20 for Fugu Ultra v2.

Best Fit

Choose Ember-1 when you care most about lower input-token price, lower output-token price, and larger context window.

Choose Fugu Ultra v2 when its provider, model quality, latency, or availability is more important than the numeric price/context winner.

Decision Notes

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Ember-1 is estimated at $10.5 vs $20 for Fugu Ultra v2, saving $9.5 (47.5% lower).
Ember-1 is $9.5 cheaper on the standard workload (47.5% lower).
Ember-1 is $2 cheaper per 1M input tokens (40% lower; 1.67x difference).
Ember-1 is $15 cheaper per 1M output tokens (50% lower; 2x difference).
Ember-1 has 48.58K more context (1.05x larger).

Head-to-Head Specs

Feature	NewEmber-1 (Fireworks)	Fugu Ultra v2 (Sakana)
Input Price prompt tokens per 1M	$3	$5
Completion Price per 1M tokens	$15	$30
Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output	$10.5	$20
Context Window	1.05M	1M
Release Date	2026-09-24	2026-09-11

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Use case	Better pick	Why
Budget-constrained production	Ember-1	On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Ember-1 is estimated at $10.5 vs $20 for Fugu Ultra v2, saving $9.5 (47.5% lower).
High-volume input processing	Ember-1	Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill.
Long responses and chatbots	Ember-1	Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens.
RAG or long-document work	Ember-1	A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files.

Related Alternatives

Same-provider lower-cost swaps

Sakana Namazu can replace Fugu Ultra v2 when lower sample workload cost matters most: $2.95.
Fugu Max can replace Fugu Ultra v2 when lower sample workload cost matters most: $5.

Larger context near this budget

Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent offers 2M context with $2.5 sample workload cost.
Grok 4.20 offers 2M context with $2.5 sample workload cost.
GLM 5.3 Flash offers 1.31M context with $0.4 sample workload cost.
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 offers 1.31M context with $0.19 sample workload cost.

Popular competitors

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DeepSeek V4.1 Flash · DeepSeek · #3
Hy4 preview · Tencent · #4

Cheaper alternatives

Review low-cost models sorted by a standard 1M input plus 500K output workload.

Open cheapest models

Larger context alternatives

Find models with larger context windows for RAG, long documents, and codebase review.

Open largest context models

Provider catalogs

Compare models within provider hubs before choosing a final API vendor.

Open provider hubs

Fireworks catalog

Review all tracked Fireworks models before deciding whether this matchup is the right shortlist.

Open Fireworks models

Sakana catalog

Check other Sakana models with comparable pricing, context, or release timing.

Open Sakana models

Ember-1

Ember-1 is a specialized reasoning model from Fireworks Research, built on [Kimi K3](https://openrouter.ai/moonshotai/kimi-k3). It is designed to make every token go further: it produces shorter reasoning traces, using roughly 40%...

Fugu Ultra v2

Fugu Ultra v2 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...