Model profile
GPT-5 mini
Best cheap OpenAI tier
OpenAIProprietaryNo. 6 overall
Editor's verdict
The volume workhorse: chatbots, summaries, classification, and light coding at scale. Start here before paying flagship rates.
Where it wins
- Near-frontier quality at a fifth of flagship pricing
- Fast enough for interactive product features
Watch-outs
- Loses a step on the hardest reasoning tasks
- Weaker at nuanced tone in long-form writing