Seed 1.6 Flash
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ByteDance Seed | 262,144 token context | $0.07/M input, $0.30/M output. Seed 1.6 Flash is an ultra-fast multimodal deep thinking model by ByteDance Seed, supporting both text and visual understanding. It features a 256k context window and can generate outputs of up to 16k tokens.
Guides for this model
The 10 cheapest ChatGPT alternatives in 2026: free local models, free tiers and flat-rate plans
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Captain's notes
Notes from 2026-10-13
Seed 1.6 Flash is a multimodal reasoning model from ByteDance Seed that handles both text and images at unusually low token prices. Its 256k context window and up to 16k output tokens give it room to work on long documents or extended reasoning chains. The price point makes it worth trying anywhere you need fast, thinking-capable vision at scale.
Known for
- Multimodal input: processes both text and images in a single call.
- Deep thinking mode on a flash-class model — reasoning without the flagship price.
- 256k context window fits long documents or extended multi-turn sessions.
- Outputs up to 16k tokens, useful for detailed analysis or long-form generation.
- Sub-cent input pricing at $0.07 per million tokens.
Watch out for
- Closed weights, API-only — you cannot run this locally or inspect the model.
- ByteDance publishes no model card details here, so benchmark claims are unverified independently.
Prompts to try
Reason through a visual problem
Attach a chart or diagram from a report you are working on. Ask: walk through what this image shows, identify any anomalies or trends, and explain what a non-specialist should take away from it. Think step by step before giving your final answer.
Long document deep-dive
Paste a lengthy contract, research paper or policy document. Ask: read the entire text, identify the three most consequential clauses or findings, flag any internal contradictions, and summarise the key obligations or conclusions in plain language.
Multi-step reasoning puzzle
A factory produces widgets in batches. Each batch takes 4 hours and yields 150 widgets. The factory runs two shifts of 10 hours each per day. Orders require 2,000 widgets delivered in 3 days. How many parallel production lines are needed, and what is the minimum buffer stock to hold if one line goes down for a full shift?
Compare with
- Seed 2.1 TurboAPI-only model262,144 token context · $0.50/M input, $2.50/M output
- Seed 1.6API-only model262,144 token context · $0.25/M input, $2.00/M output
- Seed-2.0-MiniAPI-only model262,144 token context · $0.10/M input, $0.40/M output
- Seed-2.0-LiteAPI-only model262,144 token context · $0.25/M input, $2.00/M output
More text models from bytedance-seed
Questions people ask
- Can I run Seed 1.6 Flash locally?
- No — the weights are not public and there is no Hugging Face repository. You access it through the API only.
- What does it cost and how long is the context?
- Input is $0.07 per million tokens and output is $0.30 per million, with a 262,144-token context window and a maximum output of 16k tokens.
- How does Seed 1.6 Flash differ from a standard fast model?
- Unlike most flash or mini models, it includes a deep thinking mode, meaning it can reason through problems rather than just pattern-match quickly — and it accepts image inputs alongside text.
Captain's verdictA rare combination: flash-tier pricing with genuine reasoning and vision — worth testing before you default to a pricier frontier model.
Captain writes these notes from the model's own description and model card. Prices and context sizes are the provider's at the time of writing and can change.
Ranking badge
Updated Oct 22, 2026
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How this score adds up
This model has no popularity data from any source yet, so it carries a stand-in number below 7,000° that keeps the lists complete. It never ranks above a model with data. The breakdown appears here as soon as a source reports it.
Glossary: the terms used here
- Heat score
- One number for how much a model is used and wanted right now, from 0° to 9,999°. Every list on this site that says hottest is sorted by it and nothing else.
- Floor
- The 7,000° every model with real data starts from. The scale runs from 0° to 9,999°; the part below the floor is reserved for stand-ins (models without data), so that a model with data always ranks above one without. The floor is the same for everyone and decides nothing; the degrees above it are the measurement.
- Download-equivalents
- Everything the score treats as a download, added up: downloads themselves, each torrent seeder as 1,000, each AI Horde image and each run on a generation site as one.
- Log scale
- Counting by tens, not by ones: going from 1,000 to 10,000 downloads adds the same degrees as going from 10,000 to 100,000. It keeps giants from crowding out everything else.
- Likes
- Thumbs up and likes from every source, worth half a download each on the log scale.
- Adoption rate
- How many downloads a day a model gets right now, from the difference between two readings of a source. A quarter of the weight of the download term.
- Measured and estimated
- Measured means two readings of a source exist and the difference is real. Estimated means only today's total is known and the past is spread over the model's life; the site says which one it is showing.
- Seeder
- Someone who keeps a copy of the weights online for others to download over a torrent, or a hosted mirror doing the same. Each one counts as 1,000 downloads.
- AI Horde
- A volunteer network that generates images for free on donated computers. The number of images it has made with a model is public, and each counts as one download.
- Generation sites
- Sites that host their own copies of a model and let people generate with it, such as PixAI, SeaArt and Yodayo. Their downloads count like Civitai's and each generation run as one download.
- OpenRouter tokens
- A text model served through an API, such as Claude or GPT, has no weights to download, so its usage is measured in tokens: the pieces of text it read and wrote through OpenRouter, a gateway many apps use, over the last 30 days. Every 10,000,000 tokens count as one download. Source: OpenRouter (openrouter.ai/rankings), CC BY 4.0.
- Full model (checkpoint)
- The weights themselves, the file that generates on its own. It gets a bonus because add-ons depend on it.
- LoRA and embedding
- Small add-on files that steer someone else's weights toward a style, a character or a concept. They cannot run alone.
- Family and weights
- The base a model is built on, such as SD 1.5, SDXL, Flux or Wan. Every model inherits the release date of its family's weights.
- Age
- Degrees taken off for how long ago the family's weights came out: 150° a year, up to 750°. It keeps old downloads that had years to pile up from freezing the top of the list.
- Family boost
- A small, bounded nudge for LoRAs of a family this site is pushing forward right now, always listed in the breakdown.
- Stand-in score
- A stable number below the floor given to a model no source reports on yet, so lists stay complete. It never ranks above a model with data.
- New! (grace period)
- A model less than 7 days old shows New! instead of a score and holds no place in the rankings. Its score is computed from day one, but a model one day old grows faster than anything, so without the wait the week's #1 would always be whatever came out yesterday rather than what held up for a week.
- Trend
- How a model's growth over a period compares with the typical model's growth over the same period. Faster than typical reads as a rise, slower as a fall.
- Typical model
- The middle of the catalog: half the models with a figure grew faster over the period, half slower.
Seed 1.6 Flash is a text model for the Text / LLM family listed on ModelTrends.ai, a read-only catalog of open source AI image, video and text models. Compare it with other Text / LLM models and check its heat score to see how it is trending.
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