On January 31, 2025, OpenAI introduced its newest model, the o3-mini large language model. The OpenAI o3-mini large language model is the most cost-efficient in OpenAI’s reasoning series. The OpenAI o3-mini model is optimized for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) reasoning. If you’re wondering how the OpenAI o3-mini model performs and how you can access it, we’ve got you covered!

In this article, we’ll explore the OpenAI o3-mini model and its reasoning capabilities.

Ready?

Let’s dive in!

TL; DR

  • OpenAI introduced one of the most advanced reasoning models, the o3-mini model, on January 31, 2025.
  • You can access the OpenAI o3-mini model using the API or experience it through ChatGPT and TextCortex.
  • The OpenAI o3-mini model is optimized for STEM reasoning.
  • The OpenAI o3-mini model provides equal performance to o1 in medium reasoning effort mode but produces much faster output.
  • If you want to integrate the OpenAI o3-mini model into your personal or professional workflow, TextCortex is the way to go.

OpenAI o3-mini Review

OpenAI o3-mini model is OpenAI's first small reasoning model, introduced on January 31, 2025, that supports highly requested developer features, including function calls, structured outputs, and developer messages. OpenAI o3-mini model can choose one of 3 reasoning effort options: low, medium, and high. Reducing reasoning effort can result in faster responses and fewer tokens used on reasoning in a response.

openai-o3-mini-review

How to Access OpenAI o3-mini?

OpenAI o3-mini model is available as ChatGPT and API as of the release date. To access the OpenAI o3-mini model via ChatGPT, you need to have a Plus, Team or Pro subscription. Plus Team users can use the o3-mini model with a limit of 150 messages per day. Additionally, o3-mini works with search to find up-to-date answers with links to relevant web sources. Another way to access the OpenAI o3-mini model is to use it as an API.

ChatGPT o3-mini

The accessing method that you can integrate the OpenAI o3-mini model into your enterprise workflow is to leverage it via TextCortex. TextCortex offers its users multiple LLM libraries optimized for different tasks, including o3-mini. All you need to do to use the o3-mini model via TextCortex is to sign up and select the o3-mini model from chat settings.

ZenoChat o3-mini

OpenAI o3-mini Pricing

If you want to use OpenAI o3-mini through ChatGPT, you need to subscribe to ChatGPT Plus, Team, or Pro plans. ChatGPT pricing plans are as follows:

  • Plus: $20 / month
  • Team: $30 / month billed monthly
  • Team: $24 / month billed annually
  • Pro: $200 / month

Plus Team subscriptions only have 150 requests per day with o3-mini. If you want unlimited use of o3-mini, you need to purchase the ChatGPT Pro subscription.

ChatGPT o3-mini Pricing

If you want to use the OpenAI o3-mini model with a 200K context window as API, pricing is as follows:

  • Input: $1.10 / 1M tokens
  • Cached Input: $0.55 / 1M tokens
  • Output: $4.40 / 1M tokens
o3-mini API pricing

OpenAI o3-mini Capabilities

OpenAI o3-mini model is the most cost-efficient reasoning model developed and published by OpenAI. The model has 3 reasoning effort options, low, medium, and high. Let's take a closer look at the capabilities and features of the o3-mini together.

STEM Reasoning

The OpenAI o3-mini model is optimized for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) reasoning. The medium reasoning effort option of the OpenAI o3-mini model matches the math, coding, and science performance of o1 while generating faster output. The o3-mini model also provides more accurate and clear answer responses than the OpenAI o1-mini model. Additionally, with medium reasoning effort, o3-mini matches the performance of o1 on reasoning and intelligence evaluations such as GPQA and AIME.

o3-mini reasoning performance

Model Speed and Performance

Although the medium reasoning effort of the OpenAI o3-mini model is equal to the OpenAI o1 model, it can generate much faster output than it. In A/B testing, o3-mini delivers responses 24% faster than o1-mini, with an average response time of 7.7 seconds compared to 10.16 seconds.

o3-mini model speed

Safety

While developing the OpenAI o3-mini model, the deliberative alignment method was used to generate safe and unharmful output. This method directly teaches reasoning LLMs the text of human-written and interpretable safety specifications and trains them to reason explicitly about these specifications before answering. Similar to OpenAI o1, o3-mini significantly surpasses GPT-4o on challenging safety and jailbreak evaluations.

o3-mini safety

TextCortex : Integrate o3-mini Into Your Workflow

If you want to integrate the OpenAI o3-mini model into your professional or personal workflow and lighten your workload, TextCortex is designed for you. TextCortex offers its users multiple LLM libraries including o3-mini and Gemini 2.0 Flash. You can use the LLM you choose in your specific tasks and complete your tasks much more quickly and with high quality. In addition to the multiple LLMs library, TextCortex also offers its users web search, powerful RAG, knowledge bases, individual personas, and AI image generator features.

TextCortex offers both a web application and a handy browser extension. The TextCortex browser extension works seamlessly with over 30,000 apps and websites, including popular platforms like Gmail, Pages, and Google Docs. Once installed, the browser extension lets you quickly generate replies to emails. Plus, its integration with word processors like Google Docs and Pages unlocks even more features! You can use it to:

  • Generate text
  • Paraphrase articles
  • Translate into other languages
  • Write follow-up sentences
  • Create outlines for your topics

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the o3-mini better than the o1?

The OpenAI o3-mini model has equal reasoning performance to the o1 model at medium reasoning effort but can produce much faster output. If you are looking for an LLM for heavy reasoning tasks, the o3-mini model is a better choice than the o1.

Is ChatGPT o3 available?

OpenAI o3-mini model is available and accessible via ChatGPT and API. You can select the OpenAI o3-mini model from ChatGPT’s chat settings. You can also use ZenoChat by TextCortex to access the o3-mini model.

What is o3-mini high?

The o3-mini model developed by OpenAI has 3 reasoning effort modes, and high is the most advanced of these modes. You can use the o3-mini model at maximum performance by turning on the OpenAI o3-mini high mode, but the output speed will decrease.