Which model is better: Claude Opus 5 or o3-mini?

o3-mini is 78.0% cheaper for input tokens ($1.10 vs. $5.00 per 1M tokens) and $4.40 vs. $25.00 for output tokens (4.5x cost difference). In terms of operational performance, Claude Opus 5 delivers faster response latency with 340ms TTFT (860ms faster than o3-mini). Claude Opus 5 leads coding benchmarks at 82.4% SWE-bench vs. 49.3% for o3-mini.
Verified daily via automated API latency tests and official documentation.

Verified Performance & Unit Economics Delta

Daily synchronized metrics from synthetic latency endpoints and benchmark evaluations.

Metric / Dimension Claude Opus 5 o3-mini Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens $5.00 $1.10 o3-mini is 4.5x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens $25.00 $4.40 o3-mini (468.2% lower)
Avg TTFT Response Latency 340ms 1200ms Claude Opus 5 (+860ms faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding) 82.4% 49.3% Claude Opus 5 (+33.1% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR) 42.7 / 100 77 / 100 o3-mini (+34.3 pts)

Interactive Monthly Token Economics & ROI Forecaster

Model your expected production workload across prompt (input) and completion (output) tokens.

Live Calculation Engine
10.0M Tokens
100K 50M 250M 500M+
2.5M Tokens
100K 10M 50M 100M+

Estimated Monthly Spend

Claude Opus 5 $5.45

$5/1M in · $25/1M out

o3-mini $67.50

$1.1/1M in · $4.4/1M out

Projected Monthly Cost Reduction
$62.05 / mo
(91.9% lower cost)
A

When to Choose Claude Opus 5

Choose Claude Opus 5 when you need Pinnacle autonomous software architecture, whole-system enterprise codebases, PhD-level scientific synthesis, and complex multi-agent delegation. and have an infrastructure budget aligned with $5.00/1M tokens.

B

When to Choose o3-mini

Choose o3-mini when you need Cost-efficient STEM reasoning, high-throughput math problem-solving, and structured code synthesis. and prioritize OpenAI ecosystem integration at $1.10/1M tokens.

Related Questions & Decision Factors

Which is cheaper: Claude Opus 5 or o3-mini?

o3-mini is cheaper at $1.10/1M input tokens compared to $5.00/1M for Claude Opus 5.

Which model has lower latency: Claude Opus 5 or o3-mini?

Claude Opus 5 delivers faster response times with an average TTFT of 340ms vs 1200ms for o3-mini.

When should you choose Claude Opus 5?

Choose Claude Opus 5 when you need Pinnacle autonomous software architecture, whole-system enterprise codebases, PhD-level scientific synthesis, and complex multi-agent delegation. and have an infrastructure budget aligned with $5.00/1M tokens.

When should you choose o3-mini?

Choose o3-mini when you need Cost-efficient STEM reasoning, high-throughput math problem-solving, and structured code synthesis. and prioritize OpenAI ecosystem integration at $1.10/1M tokens.

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