GPT-5 vs o1-mini

GPT-5 vs o1-mini: o1-mini is cheaper by 56% on average. GPT-5 from OpenAI (272,000-token context, reasoning, tool calls) vs. o1-mini from OpenAI (128,000-token context). Use Agent Command Center to A/B both in shadow mode and pick the winner per workload.

Side-by-side cost

Live workload comparison

Same workload run through both models. The cheaper one is highlighted.

3,000
0272,000
400
0128,000
5,000
01,000,000
OpenAI
$1,179/mo
Input $1.25/M · Output $10.00/M
o1-miniCheaper
OpenAI
$770/mo
Input $1.10/M · Output $4.40/M
At this workload, o1-mini is 35% cheaper than GPT-5 — a savings of $409/month ($4,913/year).
Production recipe — Agent Command Center
strategy: cost-optimized
primary:
  model: o1-mini
  provider: openai
fallback:
  model: gpt-5
  provider: openai
shadow: { sample_rate: 0.05 }   # mirror 5% of traffic to compare quality live
GPT-5 o1-mini
Input price $1.25/M $1.10/M
Output price $10.00/M $4.40/M
Context window 272,000 128,000
Max output 128,000 65,536
Function calling
Vision
Audio input
Reasoning
Prompt caching
Structured output
Pricing verified May 12, 2026 May 7, 2026
Cheaper option
~56% cheaper than GPT-5
Larger context
272,000 tokens
More capabilities
5 of 6 capability flags advertised

Benchmark comparison

Side-by-side public benchmark scores. Greener bar = winner.

Chatbot Arena ELOgeneral
GPT-5
1,450
o1-mini
MATH-500math
GPT-5
99.6%
o1-mini
AIME 2024math
GPT-5
98.4%
o1-mini
BFCL v3agent
GPT-5
96.3%
o1-mini
HumanEvalcode
GPT-5
96.0%
o1-mini
IFEvalgeneral
GPT-5
95.6%
o1-mini
AIME 2025math
GPT-5
94.6%
o1-mini
LiveCodeBenchcode
GPT-5
90.0%
o1-mini
MMLU-Proreasoning
GPT-5
89.4%
o1-mini
Aider Polyglotcode
GPT-5
88.0%
o1-mini
GPQA Diamondreasoning
GPT-5
87.3%
o1-mini
MMMUmultimodal
GPT-5
84.2%
o1-mini
SWE-bench Verifiedagent
GPT-5
74.9%
o1-mini
Humanity's Last Examreasoning
GPT-5
42.0%
o1-mini
ARC-AGI-2reasoning
GPT-5
17.6%
o1-mini