Extremely low cost at $0.15/1M input — among the cheapest OpenAI models
Very fast response times suitable for interactive user-facing apps
Strong enough for most writing, summarisation, and classification tasks
Weaknesses
Noticeably weaker than GPT-5.2 Mini on complex reasoning and multi-step tasks
Not suitable for hard coding challenges or deep document research
DeepSeek V3 now offers better coding quality at comparable pricing
Real-world use cases
What people actually use GPT-4o Mini for.
Customer support and classification pipelines where speed and low cost matter more than frontier quality
Content drafting, summarisation, and editing at scale
Lightweight coding assistance and code explanation for simpler tasks
How GPT-4o Mini compares
The nearest models people weigh against it, and what actually separates them.
vs GPT-3.5 Turbo — Against GPT-3.5 Turbo (OpenAI), GPT-4o Mini runs about 63% cheaper per token and takes 7.8x the context. Take GPT-4o Mini unless you specifically need what GPT-3.5 Turbo does better.
vs GPT-3.5 Turbo (older v0613) — Against GPT-3.5 Turbo (older v0613) (OpenAI), GPT-4o Mini runs about 75% cheaper per token and takes 31.3x the context. Take GPT-4o Mini unless you specifically need what GPT-3.5 Turbo (older v0613) does better.
vs GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct — Against GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct (OpenAI), GPT-4o Mini runs about 79% cheaper per token and takes 31.3x the context. Take GPT-4o Mini unless you specifically need what GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct does better.
Price History
GPT-4o Mini pricing over time
→0% since Jun 12
90 data points · tracked daily since Jun 12, 2026
Ready to try it?
Start using GPT-4o Mini
High-volume everyday tasks where GPT-4o quality is overkill. Start free — no card required.
GPT-3.5 Turbo is OpenAI's legacy fast and affordable chat model, optimized for dialogue and straightforward text tasks at low cost. It was the backbone of early ChatGPT and remains a go-to for high-volume, cost-sensitive deployments.
Verdict
A once-dominant budget model now outclassed by cheaper, smarter alternatives like GPT-4o mini.
Quality score
35%
Pricing
$0.50/1M in
$1.50/1M out
Speed
Very fast
5/5 speed
Context
16k tokens
GPT-3.5 Turbo is still available via OpenAI API and supports fine-tuning, which keeps it relevant for teams with existing trained models. However, OpenAI has deprioritized its development in favor of the GPT-4o family. Not multimodal — text only.
BudgetLegacyFastHigh-volumeChatbot
Best for
High-volume, low-complexity tasks like chatbots, classification, summarization, and simple Q&A where cost matters more than cutting-edge quality.
An older versioned snapshot of GPT-3.5 Turbo (v0613), OpenAI's once-dominant mid-tier language model optimized for fast chat completions and instruction following. This specific checkpoint is frozen in time, predating later capability improvements introduced in subsequent GPT-3.5 Turbo updates.
Verdict
A once-useful workhorse now completely overshadowed by cheaper, more capable successors.
Quality score
31%
Pricing
$1.00/1M in
$2.00/1M out
Speed
Very fast
5/5 speed
Context
4k tokens
This is a pinned legacy snapshot (v0613) and may eventually be deprecated by OpenAI. The 4,095-token context window is its most significant practical limitation. OpenAI's own GPT-4o mini offers drastically more context and better quality at a comparable price — strongly consider migrating.
LegacyBudgetFastShort ContextOpenAI
Best for
High-volume, cost-sensitive text tasks like classification, summarization, and simple Q&A where bleeding-edge quality is not required.
GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct is a legacy completion-style model from OpenAI, designed for instruction-following tasks using the older text completion API rather than the chat API. It excels at structured text generation, fill-in-the-middle tasks, and traditional NLP workflows that predate the chat paradigm.
Verdict
A legacy model only worth using if your pipeline depends on the text completion API.
Quality score
30%
Pricing
$1.50/1M in
$2.00/1M out
Speed
Very fast
5/5 speed
Context
4k tokens
Uses the legacy /v1/completions endpoint, not /v1/chat/completions. The 4,095-token context window is a hard constraint that makes it unsuitable for most modern tasks. OpenAI has not deprecated it, but it receives no capability updates.
LegacyCompletion APILow LatencyNarrow TasksOld Gen
Best for
Legacy completion API workflows, structured text generation, and simple instruction-following tasks where the chat format is not required.
GPT-4o Mini costs $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.6 per million output tokens on the API, with cached input at $0.075 per million. A month of 10M input and 2M output tokens runs about $2.70 at list price, before any batch or caching discounts.
What is the context window of GPT-4o Mini?
GPT-4o Mini has a 128k tokens context window, with up to 16k tokens of output per response. That is the total of prompt plus response the model can hold in one request.
What is the knowledge cutoff of GPT-4o Mini?
GPT-4o Mini's training data runs through September 2023, and the model was released on July 18, 2024. For anything after that date it needs web search or documents in the prompt.
What is GPT-4o Mini best for?
GPT-4o Mini is best for high-volume everyday tasks where gpt-4o quality is overkill. It is a strong fit when that workflow matters more than the tradeoffs around budget pricing and very fast speed.
When should I avoid GPT-4o Mini?
You need strong reasoning or coding — GPT-5.2 Mini or DeepSeek V3 are better at similar or lower cost.
What is a cheaper alternative to GPT-4o Mini?
Claude Opus 4.5 (Anthropic) at $5.00/1M/1M input against GPT-4o Mini's $0.15/1M/1M. Anthropic's most capable model delivers best-in-class reasoning and writing quality, but the steep output cost demands genuinely complex use cases to justify it. Compare it first if GPT-4o Mini's pricing is the thing stopping you.
What is a faster alternative to GPT-4o Mini?
GPT-3.5 Turbo — very fast against GPT-4o Mini's very fast, with 16k tokens of context. Worth the swap when response time is what your users notice rather than the last few points of reasoning depth.
Newsletter
Get notified when GPT-4o Mini pricing changes
We track pricing daily. When this model drops or spikes, you'll know first.
No spam. Useful updates only. Affiliate disclosures always clearly labeled.