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Meta launches paid API with Muse Spark 1.1 model

July 9, 2026 at 10:06 EDT

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On July 9, 2026, Meta released Muse Spark 1.1, a model with strengthened agentic performance and tool use, and opened a public preview of its developer-facing Meta Model API in the United States. The model is available in the "Thinking" mode of the Meta AI app and meta.ai, and new API accounts receive $20 in free credits. (The Verge)

July 9, 2026 · Meta Superintelligence Labs

Meta Starts Charging for AI: Muse Spark 1.1 Goes Agentic

Meta's first paid, developer-facing closed model steps away from the open-weight Llama era — pitched at frontier-class performance for roughly a quarter of rivals' prices, with $20 in free API credits.

~1/4

of competitors' API rates — "aggressive and attractive"

token context for long-running agentic tasks

$20

free credits for every new API account

Where It Leads — and Where It Trails

Two benchmarks, two very different stories. Column height is proportional to score.

HealthBench Hard — Muse Spark leads

42.8

Muse Spark

20.6

Gemini

14.8

Opus 4.6

ARC-AGI 2 (abstract reasoning) — trails

42.5

Muse Spark

76.5

Gemini

Praised by developers

Native multimodal processing & visual strengths
Practical for health-related use cases
Strong agentic tool & computer use

Points of criticism

Lags rivals on abstract reasoning
Weaker on certain agentic tasks
Not open-weight — a break from Llama

The strategic turn

Positioned as Meta's "first serious API" — the first step on a scaling ladder toward "personal superintelligence."

Testing: Replit · Box · Cline Free in Meta AI app & meta.ai Coming: Contemplating mode · WhatsApp · Instagram

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