Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs o3-mini

    Comparison

    As of August 20, 2026, o3-mini is 69% cheaper per million tokens than Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is $3.00 / $15.00 per million input/output tokens versus o3-mini at $1.10 / $4.40. Sources: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing and https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing

    Sources: Anthropic Claude API pricing (https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing); OpenAI API pricing (https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing)

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet

    Anthropic

    $18.00blended / 1M

    Input

    $3.00

    Output

    $15.00

    200K ctx|Proprietary
    69%
    cheaper
    Better value

    o3-mini

    OpenAI

    $5.50blended / 1M

    Input

    $1.10

    Output

    $4.40

    200K ctx|Proprietary
    Save $12.50 per million tokens by choosing o3-mini over Claude 3.5 Sonnet.

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs o3-mini comparison

    Token pricing, specs, and benchmarks side by side

    Metric
    Claude 3.5 Sonnet
    o3-mini
    Provider
    Provider
    Anthropic
    OpenAI
    License
    Proprietary
    Proprietary
    Release Date
    2024-06-21
    2025-01-30
    Pricing (per 1M tokens)
    Input Price+173%
    $3.00
    $1.10
    Output Price+241%
    $15.00
    $4.40
    Blended (1M + 1M)
    $18.00
    $5.50
    Model Details
    Context Window
    200K
    200K
    Max Output Tokens
    200K
    100K
    Knowledge Cutoff
    April 2024
    2023-09-30
    Throughput
    78 tok/s
    115 tok/s
    Benchmarks
    59.4%
    77.2%
    54.0%
    79.7%
    39.8%
    15%
    93.9%
    3.0%
    61%
    1.0%
    9.2%
    50%
    6.5%
    44.4%
    87.3%
    97.9%
    65.1%
    90.4%
    86.9%
    68.3%
    92%
    71.1%
    97.9%
    98.7%
    45.3%
    0.3%
    17.5%
    22.5%
    87.1%
    96.4%
    84.6%
    94.8%
    91.6%
    92%
    76.1%
    78.7%
    79.5%
    27.5%
    22.8%
    69.4%
    60%
    Benchmark Wins
    Claude 3.5 Sonnet 3|10 o3-mini

    Verdict

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs o3-mini: the bottom line

    o3-mini offers both lower pricing and stronger benchmark performance across the board, making it the clear value leader in this comparison.

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs o3-mini FAQ

    Which is cheaper, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or o3-mini?

    As of August 20, 2026, o3-mini is 69% cheaper on blended LLM API pricing. o3-mini costs $1.10 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens ($5.50 blended 1M-in + 1M-out). Claude 3.5 Sonnet costs $3.00 / $15.00 per million tokens ($18.00 blended). Sources: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing and https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing. The cheapest LLM for your app still depends on how many output tokens you generate.

    How much does Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs o3-mini cost per million tokens?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet Claude API pricing from Anthropic is $3.00 input and $15.00 output per million tokens via Anthropic. o3-mini OpenAI API pricing is $1.10 input and $4.40 output per million tokens via OpenAI. Use those four numbers, not ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro subscription prices, when you are comparing APIs.

    Which is better for coding, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or o3-mini?

    o3-mini leads on SWE-bench Verified: Claude 3.5 Sonnet at 49% vs o3-mini at 49.3%. SWE-bench measures real GitHub fixes; LiveCodeBench measures contest programming.

    What is the context window for Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs o3-mini?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet supports a 200K token context window, while o3-mini supports 200K tokens. Both models have the same context window size. Filling a larger window bills more input tokens, so the cheaper-per-million model can still cost more on long documents.

    Which model performs better on benchmarks, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or o3-mini?

    o3-mini leads on 10 of 13 shared benchmarks versus Claude 3.5 Sonnet's 3 wins. Check the comparison table for GPQA Diamond, SWE-bench, MMLU, HLE, and the other evals we track. Token price and benchmark score together are the usual LLM comparison, not either number alone.

    Is Claude 3.5 Sonnet or o3-mini better for production use?

    Both Claude 3.5 Sonnet and o3-mini are production API models. For cost-sensitive production traffic, o3-mini has better economics on the blended 1M-in + 1M-out scale. For maximum capability, weight the benchmark table for your domain. Many production stacks route cheap models for drafts and a frontier model for the hard turn, which is usually cheaper than sending everything to the expensive API.

    Can I switch between Claude 3.5 Sonnet and o3-mini in my app?

    Yes. Call Claude 3.5 Sonnet through Anthropic and o3-mini through OpenAI with separate API keys, or through a gateway that already wraps both. Keep prompts in tokens, not characters, when you estimate the invoice. AnotherWrapper templates can swap providers without rewriting auth and billing.

    How accurate is this Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs o3-mini pricing data?

    List rates are the latest published Claude API pricing from Anthropic and OpenAI API pricing, quoted per million tokens. Official rate sheets: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing and https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing. Prompt caching, batch APIs, and committed-use discounts can change the invoice. Benchmark scores are from official publications and independent evals, updated as new numbers land.

    What is the output token limit for Claude 3.5 Sonnet and o3-mini?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet supports up to 200K output tokens per request, while o3-mini supports up to 100K output tokens. Output tokens are usually the expensive half of API pricing, so a higher max output cap is a capability, not a discount.

    Which model has better throughput, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or o3-mini?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet runs at approximately 78 tokens/second while o3-mini runs at 115 tokens/second. o3-mini is faster in raw throughput. Throughput (tokens per second) and time-to-first-token are why two models with the same per-million-token price can still feel different in chat and agents.

    How do I switch the models in this Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs o3-mini comparison?

    Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open Claude 3.5 Sonnet or o3-mini from the sidebar for the single-model API pricing page, or go back to the LLM pricing table to sort by cheapest blended cost.

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs o3-mini pricing

    This comparison covers API pricing, context window, throughput, and benchmark scores. Claude 3.5 Sonnet costs $3.00/M input and $15.00/M output. o3-mini costs $1.10/M input and $4.40/M output.

    Rank both on the LLM leaderboard, SWE-bench, and Humanity's Last Exam.

    The index

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