OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo API Pricing
OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo costs $0.500 per 1M input tokens and $1.50 per 1M output tokens. Context window: 16K. Prices verified 2026-10-21 · source
Alternatives to consider
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Cheapest openai model — 95% less per month
Rebuilt daily from our snapshot archive — the chart appears once a model has 5+ snapshots of history.
From our own daily snapshot archive — independent of provider announcements.
Intelligence measures reasoning/knowledge/coding benchmarks. A high score with a low blended price = value pick; check the value chart to see where this model lands.
Training data ends here — newer events require retrieval or web search.
What would OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo cost you per month?
| Workload | Requests/mo | Avg tokens (in/out) | Est. monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light chatbot | 10,000 | 800 / 400 | $10.00 |
| Coding agent | 5,000 | 8,000 / 2,000 | $35.00 |
| RAG pipeline | 30,000 | 4,000 / 500 | $82.50 |
| Doc summarizer | 2,000 | 20,000 / 1,000 | $23.00 |
Estimates use list prices without prompt caching. Caching can cut input cost by up to 90% on repeated context.
About OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo
GPT-3.5 Turbo is OpenAI's fastest model. It can understand and generate natural language or code, and is optimized for chat and traditional completion tasks. Training data up to Sep 2021.
Compare OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo with
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- GPT-3.5 Turbo vs Anthropic: Claude Opus 5
- GPT-3.5 Turbo vs OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Sol
Popular head-to-heads — see all on the comparisons index.
Frequently asked questions
How much does OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo cost?
OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo costs $0.500 per 1M input tokens and $1.50 per 1M output tokens. Verified 2026-10-21 — provider source.
What is the context window?
16K tokens, with up to 4K output tokens per response. That's roughly 20 pages of text in a single request.
Does it support prompt caching?
Prompt-caching pricing is not published for this model via OpenRouter.
What's a cheaper alternative?
ScaleDown: Summarize saves about 96% on a typical workload with comparable quality.
Official resources
- OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo on OpenRouter — live endpoint, pricing source of record.
- Artificial Analysis leaderboard → — independent intelligence and performance rankings.
- OpenAI pricing → — first-party pricing and billing details.
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