GPT-5 Mini

The faster, smaller variant of GPT-5, suited to well-defined tasks where full GPT-5 reasoning is unnecessary.

Context: 400K tokens
Max output: 128K
Cutoff: May 2024
Released: Aug 2025

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Hosted API price

List price via OpenAI · per 1M tokens

USD

Input: $0.25 /1M
Output: $2.00 /1M
Hosted by: 4 providers

Hosted API pricing

How we price

Order

Providers are listed cheapest input rate first, then by output rate, a tie going to the creator's own listing. A provider that lists the model without a published rate sits at the end.

Prices

Base-tier, on-demand rates in USD per 1M tokens, converted at ECB reference rates where a provider publishes in another currency. Cached-input and batch rates show only where a provider publishes them. "Cheapest" marks the one provider with the lowest input and output pair; a tie wears no badge.

Cost

Input rate times the input tokens plus output rate times the output tokens, at the monthly volume set above the table. Cached-input, batch, long-context and reasoning-token billing are not modelled.

Transparency and funding

Affiliates: Affiliate links are marked. We may earn a commission if you click them, but commissions never affect the order.

Every provider serving GPT-5 Mini, cheapest input first. Set your monthly volume to see what each would bill.

Input M Output M

Every provider serving GPT-5 Mini, with its price per 1M input and output tokens and what the volume above would cost
Provider	Input /1M	Output /1M	Cached input /1M	Cost at 10M in + 2M out	Link
OpenAI Creator	$0.25	$2.00	$0.025	$6.50	Visit website
DigitalOcean	$0.25	$2.00	$0.025	$6.50	Visit website
Azure	$0.25	$2.00	$0.025	$6.50	Visit website
Replicate	$0.25	$2.00		$6.50	Visit website

Heads up: Base-tier, on-demand rates per 1M tokens; cached, batch and long-context tiers excluded. A provider may serve a shorter context or a quantized build than the creator's release. Verify before provisioning. More on how we price.

Similarly priced models

The models nearest GPT-5 Mini by blended rate, each at its own cheapest provider.

Models priced nearest GPT-5 Mini per 1M tokens, each at its cheapest provider
Model	Blended /1M	Input /1M	Output /1M	Context	Cutoff	vs GPT-5 Mini
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite Google Cloud	$0.4583	$0.25	$1.50	1M	Jan 2025	−15%
Qwen3.6-Flash Alibaba Cloud	$0.4583	$0.25	$1.50	1M		−15%
Qwen3-VL-235B-A22B Instruct Alibaba Cloud	$0.50	$0.30	$1.50	262K		−8%
MiMo-V2.6-Pro Xiaomi MiMo	$0.5075	$0.435	$0.87	1M		−6%
DeepSeek V4 Pro DeepSeek	$0.5233	$0.45	$0.89	1M		−3%
GPT-5 Mini This model OpenAI	$0.5417	$0.25	$2.00	400K	May 2024
DeepSeek V3 Turbo DeepSeek	$0.55	$0.40	$1.30	64K		+2%
Qwen3-VL-30B-A3B Thinking Alibaba Cloud	$0.5667	$0.20	$2.40	262K		+5%
Qwen3-235B-A22B Thinking (2507) Alibaba Cloud	$0.575	$0.23	$2.30	262K		+6%
Qwen3-Coder-480B-A35B Alibaba Cloud	$0.575	$0.38	$1.55	262K		+6%
GPT-4.1 Mini OpenAI	$0.60	$0.40	$1.60	1M	Jun 2024	+11%

USD per 1M tokens at each model's cheapest listed provider. Blended is the cost of 10M input plus 2M output tokens, spread over the 12M.

Salad

Access 60,000+ daily active GPUs across 191 countries, from $0.02/hour

Run RTX 50-series and 40-series cards without datacenter pricing

Pick a priority level to balance cost against interruptions

Per-second billing, with no charge for cold starts or image pulls

View Pricing

Capabilities

What GPT-5 Mini accepts and can do, as published by OpenAI.

Image Accepts images as input alongside text.
Text Accepts and generates natural-language text.
Reasoning Thinks before it answers, always on or as a switchable mode.
Function calling Connect to external tools, APIs, and systems.
Structured output Return responses in structured formats like JSON.
Web search Search the web for up-to-date information.
Code execution Write and execute code in a sandboxed environment.
File upload Process uploaded documents, spreadsheets, and other files.
MCP Connect to services via Model Context Protocol.

Common questions

What is GPT-5 Mini good for?

Well-defined, high-volume tasks with precise prompts, where cost and latency matter. It sits at the lower-cost end of OpenAI's lineup.

When is GPT-5 Mini not a good fit?

Open-ended problems that need full GPT-5 reasoning, and image generation, which it lacks. Not for new workloads either: OpenAI recommends starting with GPT-5.6 Terra and plans to shut down the API model in December 2026.

What is the cheapest way to run GPT-5 Mini?

The cheapest hosted rate is $0.25 / $2.00 per 1M tokens via OpenAI.

How does GPT-5 Mini compare with GPT-5.4 Mini?

OpenAI says GPT-5.4 Mini improves on GPT-5 Mini at coding, reasoning, image understanding and tool use and runs faster, and it adds built-in computer use, tool search and context compaction. Same 400K-token context and text and image input. GPT-5 Mini lists at 67% less per 1M input tokens and 56% less per 1M output tokens than GPT-5.4 Mini. It came out 7 months earlier and has an older knowledge cutoff (May 2024 against August 2025).

Can I self-host GPT-5 Mini?

No. OpenAI does not publish the weights; GPT-5 Mini is available only through hosted APIs.