# Decision models are popping up like mushrooms after the rain (slim)

> Vlad Cealicu on why fourteen decision models launched in under four weeks, what Microsoft, OpenAI, Cloudflare, Perplexity and the rest have at stake, and why everyone wants to see the decisions your agents make.

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## What a decision model is

An agent spends most of its time making small calls.

A decision model takes the situation and a set of questions whose answers you define in advance (yes or no, one of these options, a score on this scale), and returns a probability for each answer.

## The rain

- 14: decision models listed
- 13: of them launched since 15 September
- 10: publish weights you can run yourself
- $0.02: per million input tokens, the cheapest hosted one

Decision models in the directory on 10 October 2026

The numbers are counted from our [decision model listings](/categories/decision-models), and each listing links the vendor pages it was graded from [[20]](#ref-20).

Why so many, so fast? Because they're cheap to make.

You can make your own.

And they're cheap to run.

| Model | Vendor | Input, per 1M tokens | Weights |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [pplx-decider](/tools/pplx-decider) | Perplexity | $0.02 | Apache-2.0 (v1.1) |
| [Clef-flash](/tools/cloudflare-clef) | Cloudflare | $0.038 | Apache-2.0 |
| [Liquid d1](/tools/liquid-d1) | Liquid AI | $0.04 | d1-3B, revenue-capped licence |
| [Celeris-1](/tools/celeris-1-decision) | Celeris | $0.04 | none |
| [Microsoft-Decision-1](/tools/microsoft-decision-1) | Microsoft | $0.042 | none found |
| [Jev](/tools/typesafe-jev) | TypeSafe AI | $0.042 | none |
| [Drex 1.5](/tools/nace-drex) | Nace | $0.05 | Open RAIL-M |
| [OpenAI Decisions API](/tools/openai-decisions-api) | OpenAI | $0.10 | none |
| [Clef](/tools/cloudflare-clef) | Cloudflare | $0.24 | Apache-2.0 |

Prices are from each vendor's pricing page on 10 October 2026 [[10]](#ref-10) [[4]](#ref-4) [[19]](#ref-19) [[18]](#ref-18) [[6]](#ref-6) [[14]](#ref-14) [[17]](#ref-17) [[8]](#ref-8) and change often.

## Everyone wants to see your decisions

This is the part I care about.

That's why the big names all want a model in this slot, at prices that can't make much money on their own.

- **Microsoft** says it will rebase Decision-1 on its own MAI models and on OpenAI's, and it sells it through Foundry, where your decisions sit next to the rest of your Azure bill [[5]](#ref-5).
- **OpenAI** runs its Decisions API on gpt-6-luna. Its docs say API data isn't used for training unless you opt in, abuse-monitoring logs are kept for up to 30 days, and Zero Data Retention is available to eligible customers [[8]](#ref-8) [[9]](#ref-9).
- **Cloudflare** gives the weights away under Apache-2.0 and says "we don't read, store, or train on your requests or responses" (fine-tuning aside). The same launch post points out that AI Gateway can "automatically create a dataset of requests for your use case" and sells fine-tuning on top. Your decisions, turned into your dataset, turned into a paid service [[2]](#ref-2).
- **Perplexity** sells search to agents. In my view a decision model is the step right before an agent picks what to buy or read, which is a good place for a search company to stand [[10]](#ref-10).
- **AWS** ships Strands Decider as open source, built for agents made with its Strands SDK. Free, and it keeps your agent's habits close to AWS [[11]](#ref-11).
- **Liquid AI**'s terms (30 September 2026) grant it "a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use Your Content to develop and improve Liquid AI's models", products and services, training included. Its privacy policy says it sells or shares personal data subject to an opt-out [[12]](#ref-12) [[13]](#ref-13).
- **TypeSafe** says Jev isn't trained on customer requests. Its customer agreement also says it may derive telemetry from customer data "in perpetuity", and that it "may Process Telemetry without restriction" [[14]](#ref-14) [[15]](#ref-15).

None of them says it will sell what it learns from your decisions, and I'm not saying they do.

We're not outside this.

## What I'd do

- **Run it yourself if the decision is sensitive.** Ten of the fourteen publish weights. Laya, Decider, Kev, Vela, Strands Decider, GLiClass, Clef and pplx-decider's are Apache-2.0; Liquid's and Nace's come with commercial limits. The [shortlist](/best/decision-models/) shows which run locally.
- **Read the data-use line before the price.** Every decision model listing has what the vendor says about training and retention, with the source. Check it before you send it your refund queue.
- **Ask for zero retention where it's offered.** OpenAI offers it to eligible customers [[8]](#ref-8).
- **Keep the questions generic.** Send the facts the decision needs, not the customer record around them.

We'll keep listing them as they land.

## References

Read on 10 October 2026. Quotes are as published, and benchmark and speed figures are the vendors' own.

[1] TypeSafe, Introducing System One models and Jev, 15 September 2026. Source for Jev's launch.

[2] Cloudflare, Clef: open-weight decision models, 1 October 2026. Source for the definition of a decision model, the promise not to read, store or train on requests, and AI Gateway's datasets of requests.

[3] Cloudflare, Clef gets faster, cheaper and multimodal, 9 October 2026. Source for Clef-omni and the Clef-flash price cut.

[4] Cloudflare, Workers AI pricing.

[5] Microsoft, Microsoft-Decision-1 in Microsoft Foundry, 9 October 2026. Source for the launch, the Qwen3.5-9B base and the plan to rebase on MAI and OpenAI models.

[6] OpenRouter, Microsoft-Decision-1. Source for its price of $0.042 per million input tokens and nothing for output.

[7] Unsloth, Train your own decision model.

[8] OpenAI, Decisions API guide.

[9] OpenAI, Data controls in the OpenAI platform.

[10] Perplexity, API pricing.

[11] Strands Agents, Introducing Strands Decider, 1 October 2026. Source for its release, its Qwen3.5-2B base and its place in Strands.

[12] Liquid AI, Terms and conditions, 30 September 2026. Source for the licence to use customer content to develop and improve its models.

[13] Liquid AI, Privacy policy.

[14] TypeSafe, Models.

[15] TypeSafe, Master Customer Agreement.

[16] Nace, Drex 1.5 on Hugging Face and its licence.

[17] Nace, Drex pricing.

[18] Celeris, Pricing.

[19] Liquid AI, Decision models.

[20] Anchor Terminal, decision model listings, shortlist and head-to-heads.

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- Older: [Why we built Anchor Terminal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/why-we-built-anchor-terminal.md)
- Newer: [Week 41: decide, declare, depart](https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/week-41-decide-declare-depart.md)
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