Gemini 3 Flash Vision vs o3 Vision: which model should you choose?
We compared Gemini 3 Flash Vision and o3 Vision on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Gemini 3 Flash Vision has the stronger average benchmark score; o3 Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Gemini 3 Flash Vision
Gemini 3 Flash Vision is a multimodal model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $15.06 per million input tokens and $82.14 per million output tokens, and averages 81.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $15.06 / 1M
- Output
- $82.14 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 81.9
- Open weights
- No
o3 Vision
o3 Vision is a multimodal model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $15.24 per million input tokens and $65.25 per million output tokens, and averages 81.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $15.24 / 1M
- Output
- $65.25 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 81.8
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Gemini 3 Flash Vision | o3 Vision | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $15.06 | $15.24 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $82.14 | $65.25 | B |
| Context window | 400,000 | 1,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 32,768 | 8,192 | A |
| Average score | 81.9 | 81.8 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1430.3 | 1436.5 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Gemini 3 Flash Vision wins 3, o3 Vision wins 8, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Vision | o3 Vision | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 81.8 | 83.6 | 1.8 | o3 Vision |
| GPQA Diamond | 75.7 | 77.8 | 2.1 | o3 Vision |
| SWE-bench Verified | 71.4 | 71.8 | 0.4 | o3 Vision |
| HumanEval | 84.5 | 85.6 | 1.1 | o3 Vision |
| MATH-500 | 87.5 | 84.4 | 3.1 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| AIME 2025 | 82.4 | 82.4 | 0.0 | Tie |
| LiveCodeBench | 73.2 | 73.7 | 0.5 | o3 Vision |
| IFEval | 86.9 | 89.3 | 2.4 | o3 Vision |
| TruthfulQA | 85.5 | 85.8 | 0.3 | o3 Vision |
| HellaSwag | 91.5 | 89.7 | 1.8 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| MMMU | 80.3 | 75.7 | 4.6 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| Arena Elo | 1430.3 | 1436.5 | 6.2 | o3 Vision |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Gemini 3 Flash Vision costs about $31.83 per million tokens and o3 Vision costs about $27.74. o3 Vision is roughly 13% cheaper than Gemini 3 Flash Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
o3 Vision has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 400,000 for Gemini 3 Flash Vision. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Gemini 3 Flash Vision wins 3, o3 Vision wins 8, and 1 are tied. On the index average, Gemini 3 Flash Vision leads o3 Vision by 0.1 points (81.9 versus 81.8).
The price picture favours o3 Vision. The context picture favours o3 Vision. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Gemini 3 Flash Vision for quality-sensitive work and o3 Vision for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Gemini 3 Flash Vision if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 32,768-token output limit.
Choose o3 Vision if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- The workload needs multi-step reasoning.
FAQ
Is Gemini 3 Flash Vision better than o3 Vision?
On the index average, Gemini 3 Flash Vision leads o3 Vision by 0.1 points (81.9 versus 81.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Gemini 3 Flash Vision wins 3 benchmarks, o3 Vision wins 8.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Flash Vision or o3 Vision?
o3 Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $27.74 per million tokens, versus $31.83 for Gemini 3 Flash Vision.
Which has the larger context window?
o3 Vision has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Gemini 3 Flash Vision has 400,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Gemini 3 Flash Vision is proprietary; o3 Vision is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Gemini 3 Flash Vision for quality-sensitive work and o3 Vision for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.