GPT-3.5 Turbo vs Grok 3-mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Pricing verified Apr 8, 2026

⚡ Quick Answer

Compare GPT-3.5 Turbo and Grok 3-mini across pricing, benchmarks, and capabilities.

Updated: April 8, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureGPT-3.5 TurboGrok 3-mini
ProviderOpenAIxAI
Input Price / 1M tokens$0.500$0.200
Output Price / 1M tokens$1.50$0.800
Context Window
16K
128K
Max Output Tokens
4,096
4,096
Arena ELO
1,120
1,175
Coding ELO
1,100
1,190
TTFT (ms)
150
130
Tokens/sec
100
140
MultimodalNoNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionNoNo
When to Use GPT-3.5 Turbo

GPT-3.5 Turbo excels at cost-effective, general-purpose tasks.

Strengths:

  • Very cheap
  • Fast
  • Widely used

Best for:

cost-effectivegeneral-purpose
When to Use Grok 3-mini

Grok 3-mini excels at cost-effective, general-purpose tasks.

Strengths:

  • Very cheap
  • Fast
  • Large context

Best for:

cost-effectivegeneral-purpose

Related Comparisons