o3 Turbo vs o4 Vision: which model should you choose?
We compared o3 Turbo and o4 Vision on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. o4 Vision has the stronger average benchmark score; o3 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
o3 Turbo
o3 Turbo is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $16.63 per million input tokens and $83.71 per million output tokens, and averages 83.4 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.63 / 1M
- Output
- $83.71 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 83.4
- Open weights
- No
o4 Vision
o4 Vision is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $17.01 per million input tokens and $90.05 per million output tokens, and averages 84.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.01 / 1M
- Output
- $90.05 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 84.5
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | o3 Turbo | o4 Vision | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $16.63 | $17.01 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $83.71 | $90.05 | A |
| Context window | 200,000 | 200,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 4,096 | 4,096 | Tie |
| Average score | 83.4 | 84.5 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1456.2 | 1473.2 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
o3 Turbo wins 2, o4 Vision wins 9, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | o3 Turbo | o4 Vision | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 82.7 | 84.2 | 1.5 | o4 Vision |
| GPQA Diamond | 77.7 | 80.9 | 3.2 | o4 Vision |
| SWE-bench Verified | 70.7 | 75.6 | 4.9 | o4 Vision |
| HumanEval | 87.4 | 88.9 | 1.5 | o4 Vision |
| MATH-500 | 90.6 | 91.7 | 1.1 | o4 Vision |
| AIME 2025 | 83.0 | 80.4 | 2.6 | o3 Turbo |
| LiveCodeBench | 80.7 | 81.3 | 0.6 | o4 Vision |
| IFEval | 89.1 | 89.1 | 0.0 | Tie |
| TruthfulQA | 83.6 | 85.3 | 1.7 | o4 Vision |
| HellaSwag | 91.8 | 91.2 | 0.6 | o3 Turbo |
| MMMU | 79.7 | 80.7 | 1.0 | o4 Vision |
| Arena Elo | 1456.2 | 1473.2 | 17.0 | o4 Vision |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, o3 Turbo costs about $33.40 per million tokens and o4 Vision costs about $35.27. o3 Turbo is roughly 5% cheaper than o4 Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Both models list a 200,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, o3 Turbo wins 2, o4 Vision wins 9, and 1 are tied. On the index average, o4 Vision leads o3 Turbo by 1.1 points (84.5 versus 83.4).
The price picture favours o3 Turbo. The context picture is effectively a tie. 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 o4 Vision for quality-sensitive work and o3 Turbo for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose o3 Turbo if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
Choose o4 Vision if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
FAQ
Is o3 Turbo better than o4 Vision?
On the index average, o4 Vision leads o3 Turbo by 1.1 points (84.5 versus 83.4). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. o3 Turbo wins 2 benchmarks, o4 Vision wins 9.
Which is cheaper, o3 Turbo or o4 Vision?
o3 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $33.40 per million tokens, versus $35.27 for o4 Vision.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 200,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
o3 Turbo is proprietary; o4 Vision is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with o4 Vision for quality-sensitive work and o3 Turbo for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.