💰 Unit Cost Winner OpenAI o3-mini $1.10/1M in · $4.40/1M out
⚡ Latency & Speed Winner Grok 3 620ms TTFT · 88 tok/s
💻 Coding (SWE) Winner Grok 3 65.8% SWE-bench · 91.5% HumanEval
🧠 STEM Reasoning Winner Grok 3 84.6% GPQA · 89.8% MATH-500

Which model is better: Grok 3 or OpenAI o3-mini?

OpenAI o3-mini is 63.3% cheaper for input tokens ($1.10 vs. $3.00 per 1M tokens) and $4.40 vs. $15.00 for output tokens (2.7x cost advantage). In terms of operational performance, Grok 3 delivers lower response latency at 620ms TTFT (330ms faster than OpenAI o3-mini) with 88 vs. 98 tok/s throughput. Grok 3 leads coding evaluations at 65.8% SWE-bench Verified vs. 49.3% for OpenAI o3-mini and 84.6% 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 Grok 3 OpenAI o3-mini Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens $3.00 $1.10 OpenAI o3-mini is 2.7x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens $15.00 $4.40 OpenAI o3-mini (70.7% lower)
Prompt Cache Read / 1M $0.750 $0.550 OpenAI o3-mini is 1.4x cheaper
Prompt Cache Write / 1M $3.00 $1.10 OpenAI o3-mini is 2.7x cheaper
Context Window (Max Output) 134k (16k out) 205k (100k out) OpenAI o3-mini (1.5x larger context)
Avg TTFT Response Latency 620ms 950ms Grok 3 (330ms faster)
Generation Speed (Throughput) 88 tok/s 98 tok/s OpenAI o3-mini (+10 tok/s faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding) 65.8% 49.3% Grok 3 (+16.5% lead)
GPQA Diamond (PhD STEM) 84.6% 79.7% Grok 3 (+4.9% lead)
MMLU-Pro (Multi-Discipline) 80% 83.2% OpenAI o3-mini (+3.2% lead)
MATH-500 (Quantitative Logic) 89.8% 97.9% OpenAI o3-mini (+8.1% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR) 52.7 / 100 59.7 / 100 OpenAI o3-mini (+7 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

Grok 3 $121.88

$3.00/1M in · $15.00/1M out

Prompt Cache: $0.750/1M read · $3.00/1M 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
$79.25 / mo
(65.0% lower cost with OpenAI o3-mini)
Open Full Matchup Analysis →
A

When to Choose Grok 3

Choose Grok 3 (xAI) for massive compute foundation model specialized in PhD-level science reasoning, real-time data analysis, and enterprise logic — offering a 134k context window, 620ms TTFT, and $3.00/1M input pricing ($0.750/1M 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: Grok 3 or OpenAI o3-mini?

OpenAI o3-mini is cheaper at $1.10/1M input tokens ($4.40/1M output) compared to $3.00/1M input ($15.00/1M output) for Grok 3.

Which model has lower TTFT latency and higher tok/s throughput: Grok 3 or OpenAI o3-mini?

Grok 3 delivers faster first-token latency at 620ms TTFT (88 tok/s throughput) compared to 950ms TTFT (98 tok/s) for OpenAI o3-mini.

How do Grok 3 and OpenAI o3-mini compare on SWE-bench coding and GPQA Diamond reasoning?

On SWE-bench Verified software engineering, Grok 3 scores 65.8% versus 49.3% for OpenAI o3-mini. On GPQA Diamond graduate-level STEM reasoning, Grok 3 scores 84.6% versus 79.7% for OpenAI o3-mini (and 89.8% vs 97.9% on MATH-500).

When should you choose Grok 3?

Choose Grok 3 (xAI) for massive compute foundation model specialized in PhD-level science reasoning, real-time data analysis, and enterprise logic — offering a 134k context window, 620ms TTFT, and $3.00/1M input pricing ($0.750/1M 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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