o3 vs o3 Turbo: which model should you choose?
We compared o3 and o3 Turbo on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. o3 has the stronger average benchmark score; o3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
o3
o3 is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $16.80 per million input tokens and $81.80 per million output tokens, and averages 84.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.80 / 1M
- Output
- $81.80 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 84.5
- Open weights
- No
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
Specification comparison
| Spec | o3 | o3 Turbo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $16.80 | $16.63 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $81.80 | $83.71 | A |
| Context window | 400,000 | 200,000 | A |
| Max output | 4,096 | 4,096 | Tie |
| Average score | 84.5 | 83.4 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1449.0 | 1456.2 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
o3 wins 8, o3 Turbo wins 3, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | o3 | o3 Turbo | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.9 | 82.7 | 4.2 | o3 |
| GPQA Diamond | 78.3 | 77.7 | 0.6 | o3 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 72.9 | 70.7 | 2.2 | o3 |
| HumanEval | 89.8 | 87.4 | 2.4 | o3 |
| MATH-500 | 87.9 | 90.6 | 2.7 | o3 Turbo |
| AIME 2025 | 84.4 | 83.0 | 1.4 | o3 |
| LiveCodeBench | 80.7 | 80.7 | 0.0 | Tie |
| IFEval | 88.7 | 89.1 | 0.4 | o3 Turbo |
| TruthfulQA | 84.6 | 83.6 | 1.0 | o3 |
| HellaSwag | 92.7 | 91.8 | 0.9 | o3 |
| MMMU | 82.3 | 79.7 | 2.6 | o3 |
| Arena Elo | 1449.0 | 1456.2 | 7.2 | o3 Turbo |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, o3 costs about $33.05 per million tokens and o3 Turbo costs about $33.40. o3 is roughly 1% cheaper than o3 Turbo. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
o3 has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for o3 Turbo. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, o3 wins 8, o3 Turbo wins 3, and 1 are tied. On the index average, o3 leads o3 Turbo by 1.1 points (84.5 versus 83.4).
The price picture favours o3. The context picture favours o3. 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 o3 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose o3 if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 400,000-token context window.
Choose o3 Turbo if
- You prefer OpenAI's tooling or already use it.
FAQ
Is o3 better than o3 Turbo?
On the index average, o3 leads o3 Turbo by 1.1 points (84.5 versus 83.4). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. o3 wins 8 benchmarks, o3 Turbo wins 3.
Which is cheaper, o3 or o3 Turbo?
o3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $33.05 per million tokens, versus $33.40 for o3 Turbo.
Which has the larger context window?
o3 has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. o3 Turbo has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
o3 is proprietary; o3 Turbo is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with o3 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.