o3-mini vs Yi-Lightning: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Pricing verified Apr 8, 2026

⚡ Quick Answer

Compare o3-mini and Yi-Lightning across pricing, benchmarks, and capabilities.

Updated: April 8, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

Featureo3-miniYi-Lightning
ProviderOpenAI01.AI
Input Price / 1M tokens$1.10$0.140
Output Price / 1M tokens$4.40$0.140
Context Window
128K
16K
Max Output Tokens
65,536
4,096
Arena ELO
1,280
1,165
Coding ELO
1,285
1,170
TTFT (ms)
350
150
Tokens/sec
25
100
MultimodalNoNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingNoYes
VisionNoNo
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
When to Use Yi-Lightning

Yi-Lightning excels at cost-effective, fast-inference tasks.

Strengths:

  • Very cheap
  • Very fast
  • Good quality

Best for:

cost-effectivefast-inference

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