💰 Unit Cost Winner Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite $0.075/1M in · $0.30/1M out
⚡ Latency & Speed Winner Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite 78ms TTFT · 265 tok/s
💻 Coding (SWE) Winner Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite 55.4% SWE-bench · 91% HumanEval
🧠 STEM Reasoning Winner OpenAI o3-mini 79.7% GPQA · 97.9% MATH-500

Which model is better: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or OpenAI o3-mini?

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 93.2% cheaper for input tokens ($0.07 vs. $1.10 per 1M tokens) and $0.30 vs. $4.40 for output tokens (14.7x cost advantage). In terms of operational performance, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite delivers lower response latency at 78ms TTFT (872ms faster than OpenAI o3-mini) with 265 vs. 98 tok/s throughput. Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite leads coding evaluations at 55.4% SWE-bench Verified vs. 49.3% for OpenAI o3-mini and 68.4% vs. 79.7% on GPQA Diamond.
Verified daily via automated API latency tests and official documentation.

Verified Performance & Unit Economics Delta (12 Dimensions)

Daily synchronized metrics across token pricing, prompt cache economics, latency, throughput, and 5 capability benchmarks.

Metric / Dimension Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite OpenAI o3-mini Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens $0.07 $1.10 Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 14.7x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens $0.30 $4.40 Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (93.2% lower)
Prompt Cache Read / 1M $0.015 $0.550 Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 36.7x cheaper
Prompt Cache Write / 1M $0.07 $1.10 Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 14.7x cheaper
Context Window (Max Output) 1,049k (33k out) 205k (100k out) Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (5.1x larger context)
Avg TTFT Response Latency 78ms 950ms Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (872ms faster)
Generation Speed (Throughput) 265 tok/s 98 tok/s Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (+167 tok/s faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding) 55.4% 49.3% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (+6.1% lead)
GPQA Diamond (PhD STEM) 68.4% 79.7% OpenAI o3-mini (+11.3% lead)
MMLU-Pro (Multi-Discipline) 80.1% 83.2% OpenAI o3-mini (+3.1% lead)
MATH-500 (Quantitative Logic) 90.2% 97.9% OpenAI o3-mini (+7.7% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR) 81.5 / 100 59.7 / 100 Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (+21.8 pts)

Interactive Monthly Token Economics & ROI Forecaster

Model production workloads across prompt, completion, and cached context tokens, or switch models on the fly.

25.0M Tokens
500K 50M 250M 500M+
5.0M Tokens
100K 25M 75M 150M+
50% Cached
0% (Uncached) 25% 50% (Typical Agent) 95% Max

Estimated Monthly Spend

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite $2.63

$0.07/1M in · $0.30/1M out

Prompt Cache: $0.015/1M read · $0.07/1M write

OpenAI o3-mini $42.63

$1.10/1M in · $4.40/1M out

Prompt Cache: $0.550/1M read · $1.10/1M write

Projected Monthly Cost Reduction
$40.00 / mo
(93.8% lower cost with Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite)
Open Full Matchup Analysis →
A

When to Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite

Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (Google) for high-frequency data pipelines, real-time routing, large-scale document tagging, and ultra-low-cost conversational assistants — offering a 1,048k context window, 78ms TTFT, and $0.07/1M input pricing ($0.015/1M cached reads).

B

When to Choose OpenAI o3-mini

Choose OpenAI o3-mini (OpenAI) for competitive math reasoning, automated unit test generation, and structured logic pipelines — offering a 204k context window, 950ms TTFT, and $1.10/1M input pricing ($0.550/1M cached reads).

Related Questions & Decision Factors

Which is cheaper: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or OpenAI o3-mini?

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $0.075/1M input tokens ($0.30/1M output) compared to $1.10/1M input ($4.40/1M output) for OpenAI o3-mini.

Which model has lower TTFT latency and higher tok/s throughput: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or OpenAI o3-mini?

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite delivers faster first-token latency at 78ms TTFT (265 tok/s throughput) compared to 950ms TTFT (98 tok/s) for OpenAI o3-mini.

How do Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and OpenAI o3-mini compare on SWE-bench coding and GPQA Diamond reasoning?

On SWE-bench Verified software engineering, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite scores 55.4% versus 49.3% for OpenAI o3-mini. On GPQA Diamond graduate-level STEM reasoning, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite scores 68.4% versus 79.7% for OpenAI o3-mini (and 90.2% vs 97.9% on MATH-500).

When should you choose Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite?

Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (Google) for high-frequency data pipelines, real-time routing, large-scale document tagging, and ultra-low-cost conversational assistants — offering a 1,048k context window, 78ms TTFT, and $0.07/1M input pricing ($0.015/1M cached reads).

When should you choose OpenAI o3-mini?

Choose OpenAI o3-mini (OpenAI) for competitive math reasoning, automated unit test generation, and structured logic pipelines — offering a 204k context window, 950ms TTFT, and $1.10/1M input pricing ($0.550/1M cached reads).

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