Llama 3.1 8B vs o3-mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Pricing verified Apr 8, 2026

⚡ Quick Answer

Compare Llama 3.1 8B and o3-mini across pricing, benchmarks, and capabilities.

Updated: April 8, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureLlama 3.1 8Bo3-mini
ProviderMetaOpenAI
Input Price / 1M tokens$0.060$1.10
Output Price / 1M tokens$0.060$4.40
Context Window
128K
128K
Max Output Tokens
4,096
65,536
Arena ELO
1,120
1,280
Coding ELON/A1,285
TTFT (ms)
150
350
Tokens/sec
100
25
MultimodalNoNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesNo
VisionNoNo
When to Use Llama 3.1 8B

Llama 3.1 8B excels at cost-effective, fast-inference tasks.

Strengths:

  • Very cheap
  • Super fast
  • Good for lightweight tasks

Best for:

cost-effectivefast-inference
When to Use o3-mini

o3-mini excels at reasoning, math, general-purpose tasks.

Strengths:

  • Strong reasoning
  • Good math skills
  • Affordable reasoning

Best for:

reasoningmathgeneral-purpose

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