GPT-5 mini API price, and what each result really costs
OpenAI, listed 7 Aug 2025. Price checked 12 Nov 2026; unchanged since we started tracking it. Source: OpenAI's pricing page. openai/gpt-5-mini
API shutdown on 2026-12-11. Suggested replacement: gpt-5.6-terra. What the switch to GPT-5.6 Terra costs
List price per million tokens
- Input
- $0.25
- Cached input
- $0.025
- Output
- $2.00
- Context window
- 400K tokens
Note: API shutdown 2026-12-11; replacement gpt-5.6-terra. Reasoning model: thinking tokens are billed as output.
What it costs per task, and per task that works
Six common task shapes with typical token counts. The real cost counts the tries that get redone; the rates are examples, not measurements.
| Task | Per 1,000 tries | Per 1,000 that work, 8 in 10 | Per 1,000 that work, 6 in 10 | Per 1,000 that work, 4 in 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support bot answer3,000 in / 300 out | $1.35 | $1.69 | $2.25 | $3.38 |
| Invoice field extraction2,500 in / 250 out | $1.13 | $1.41 | $1.88 | $2.81 |
| Lead scoring1,200 in / 100 out | $0.50 | $0.63 | $0.83 | $1.25 |
| Email reply draft1,500 in / 400 out | $1.18 | $1.47 | $1.96 | $2.94 |
| Translation900 in / 800 out | $1.83 | $2.28 | $3.04 | $4.56 |
| Search re-ranking4,000 in / 50 out | $1.10 | $1.38 | $1.83 | $2.75 |
Work out your own real cost per resultTest GPT-5 mini on your own prompt
Compare GPT-5 mini with
- GPT-4.1 mini$0.40 in / $1.60 outSwitch cost
- GPT-5.6 Luna$0.20 in / $1.20 outSwitch cost
- Llama 3.3 70B Instruct$0.71 in / $0.71 outSwitch cost
- Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite$0.25 in / $1.50 outSwitch cost
- Qwen3.7 Plus$0.32 in / $1.28 outSwitch cost
Worked-through switches: GPT-5 mini → GPT-5.6 Terra: cost and quality on real tasks
Questions
How much does the GPT-5 mini API cost?
$0.25 per million input tokens and $2.00 per million output tokens, or $0.025 per million for cached input. Price checked 12 Nov 2026; unchanged since we started tracking it.
What does a result that works really cost with GPT-5 mini?
A support bot answer (about 3,000 tokens in, 300 out) costs $0.0014 per try. If 6 in 10 work first time, each answer that works really costs $0.0023, because the redone ones were paid for too.
Is GPT-5 mini being shut down?
OpenAI has announced the API shutdown of gpt-5-mini on 2026-12-11; the suggested replacement is gpt-5.6-terra. Source: https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/deprecations