How much does GPT-5 Mini cost per million tokens?

GPT-5 Mini costs $0.25 per million input tokens and $2 per million output tokens at list price, and $0.025 per million cached input tokens.

What is the context window of GPT-5 Mini?

GPT-5 Mini accepts up to 400,000 tokens of context and returns up to 128,000 output tokens.

How much do 1,000 chat messages cost with GPT-5 Mini?

About $1.25, assuming 1,000 input + 500 output tokens per message.

Is there a cheaper alternative to GPT-5 Mini?

In the same price range, Qwen Qwen3.8 Omni Flash ($0.15 / $0.47), Z.ai GLM 5.3 FlashX ($0.37 / $1.25), DeepSeek DeepSeek V4.1 Flash ($0.03 / $0.5) cost less per token. Quality differs: test on your own prompts.

Where can I buy OpenAI API credits for less?

Discount credit books resell OpenRouter usage below face value within their depth, OpenRouter adds a 5.5% card fee, and OpenAI sells its own credits at face value. The live table on this page ranks them for $100 of usage.

OpenAI · live price

GPT-5 Mini API pricing

GPT-5 Mini is a compact version of GPT-5, designed to handle lighter-weight reasoning tasks. It provides the same instruction-following and safety-tuning benefits as GPT-5, but with reduced latency and cost....

Small and cheap (under $1 per 1M)Tool callingReasoningimage inputfile input

Input: $0.25; per 1M tokens
Output: $2; per 1M tokens
Cached input: $0.025; per 1M tokens
Context: 400K; 128K max output

List price from OpenRouter, which passes OpenAI's price through without markup. Refreshed hourly. Released August 7, 2025. Model id openai/gpt-5-mini.

What GPT-5 Mini costs in practice

At list price, before any batch or caching discount.

1,000 chat messages

$1.25

1,000 input + 500 output tokens each

1,000 RAG questions

$3.00

8,000 input + 500 output tokens each

100 coding-agent steps

$1.15

30,000 input + 2,000 output tokens each, no caching

GPT-5 Mini price history

No price change since we started tracking on 2026-10-01. We record prices daily; changes will show here.

GPT-5 Mini price by host

OpenAI serves it below list price right now. Route to it to pay less on every token.

OpenAI$0.125 in · $1 out · 400K ctx · 99.9% uptime 24h
Azure$0.25 in · $2 out · 400K ctx · 100.0% uptime 24h

Where to buy OpenAI credits for less

GPT-5 Mini costs the same per token everywhere it's sold through OpenRouter. What changes is the price of the credits. Live quotes for $100 of usage:

#	Where you buy	You payYou pay for $100.00 of usage	vs list price	Price source
1	OrbioCardCheapest right now Credits from a discount book, plus a 5% platform fee and card processing, both included in the quote.	$85.10 incl. $2.60 card processing	-14.9%	live quote
2	smaaartCard Credits from a discount book, plus a 5% platform fee on face value. Card processing and taxes shown at checkout.	$95.00 + card processing and tax at checkout (not in this number)	-5.0%	live quote
3	Direct from the labCard Prepaid credits at face value (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google…). Taxes may apply.	$100.00 no top-up fee	list price	face value
4	OpenRouterCrypto 5% on crypto purchases. No markup on model prices.	$105.00 fees included	+5.0%	published fee
5	OpenRouterCard 5.5% on card purchases, $0.80 minimum. No markup on model prices.	$105.50 fees included	+5.5%	published fee

Disclosure: this site is run by the team behind smaaart, one of the options compared. Tables are ranked by price only, from live quotes and published fees, including when smaaart isn't first. How we compare

GPT-5 Mini cost calculator

Enter your monthly tokens to price your own usage.

Model$0.25 in / $2.00 out per 1M tokens · list price, liveInput tokens / month (millions)Output tokens / month (millions)

Usage at list price$32.50/ month(quotes below are for $33.00: purchases run from $5.00 to $10,000.00)

Cheaper alternatives to GPT-5 Mini

Other labs' models in the same price range or the one below, cheaper per token.

Model	Input / 1M	Output / 1M	Blended 3:1	Context
Qwen: Qwen3.8 Omni Flash	$0.15	$0.47	$0.23	1M
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 FlashX	$0.37	$1.25	$0.59	1.0M
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash	$0.03	$0.5	$0.147	1.0M
Qwen: Qwen3.8 Flash	$0.15	$0.47	$0.23	1M
Z.ai: GLM 5.3 Flash	$0.15	$0.5	$0.237	1.0M
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp	$0.216	$0.647	$0.323	1.0M

Other OpenAI models

Model	Input / 1M	Output / 1M	Blended 3:1	Context
GPT-5 Nano	$0.05	$0.4	$0.137	400K
GPT-5	$1.25	$10	$3.44	400K
gpt-oss-120b	$0.037	$0.17	$0.07	131K
gpt-oss-20b	$0.018	$0.09	$0.036	131K
o3 Pro	$20	$80	$35	200K
GPT-5 Pro	$15	$120	$41.25	400K

All OpenAI API prices