How much does o3 Mini cost per million tokens?

o3 Mini costs $1.10 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens at list price, and $0.55 per million cached input tokens.

What is the context window of o3 Mini?

o3 Mini accepts up to 200,000 tokens of context and returns up to 100,000 output tokens.

How much do 1,000 chat messages cost with o3 Mini?

About $3.30, assuming 1,000 input + 500 output tokens per message.

Is there a cheaper alternative to o3 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

o3 Mini API pricing

OpenAI o3-mini is a cost-efficient language model optimized for STEM reasoning tasks, particularly excelling in science, mathematics, and coding. This model supports the `reasoning_effort` parameter, which can be set to...

Mid-range ($1–5 per 1M)Tool callingReasoningfile input

Input: $1.10; per 1M tokens
Output: $4.40; per 1M tokens
Cached input: $0.55; per 1M tokens
Context: 200K; 100K max output

List price from OpenRouter, which passes OpenAI's price through without markup. Refreshed hourly. Released January 31, 2025. Model id openai/o3-mini.

What o3 Mini costs in practice

At list price, before any batch or caching discount.

1,000 chat messages

$3.30

1,000 input + 500 output tokens each

1,000 RAG questions

$11.00

8,000 input + 500 output tokens each

100 coding-agent steps

$4.18

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

o3 Mini price history

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

o3 Mini price by host

One host serves this model through OpenRouter.

OpenAI$1.10 in · $4.40 out · 200K ctx · 100.0% uptime 24h

Where to buy OpenAI credits for less

o3 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

o3 Mini cost calculator

Enter your monthly tokens to price your own usage.

Model$1.10 in / $4.40 out per 1M tokens · list price, liveInput tokens / month (millions)Output tokens / month (millions)

Usage at list price$99.00/ month

Cheaper alternatives to o3 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
Google: Gemini 3.8 Flash	$0.75	$3.75	$1.50	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

Other OpenAI models

Model	Input / 1M	Output / 1M	Blended 3:1	Context
o3 Mini High	$1.10	$4.40	$1.93	200K
o1	$15	$60	$26.25	200K
o1-pro	$150	$600	$262.50	200K
GPT-4o (2024-11-20)	$2.50	$10	$4.38	128K
GPT-4.1 Nano	$0.1	$0.4	$0.175	1.0M
GPT-4.1 Mini	$0.4	$1.60	$0.7	1.0M

All OpenAI API prices