Balanced — strong quality at a mid priceCommercial API

GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct Pricing

OpenAI · openai-gpt-3-5-turbo-instruct

Input / 1M tokens

$1.50

Output / 1M tokens

$2.00

Context window

4,095 tokens

Max output

4,096 tokens

What it costs in practice

Typical request (1,200 in + 400 out tokens)$0.0026

1,000 requests / month$2.60/mo 10,000 requests / month$26.00/mo 100,000 requests / month$260.00/mo

Estimate your own workloadOpens the calculator with GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct preloaded — adjust volume and token counts there.

Price history

Only one price point recorded so far.

The staircase chart appears once a price change is detected.

Pricing and specs for this model are auto-synced from OpenRouter, but it isn't one of our editorial picks yet — no “what it excels at” write-up or business tradeoff notes. Any tier badge above is estimated from price.

Cheaper from OpenAI

GPT Audio MiniOpenAI$0.0017/ typical request GPT-5.4 NanoOpenAI$0.0007/ typical request

Same tier from other providers

Claude Sonnet 4.6Anthropic$0.0096/ typical request Llama 4 MaverickMeta$0.0004/ typical request DeepSeek V3.2DeepSeek$0.0004/ typical request

Head-to-head

GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 →GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct vs Llama 4 Maverick →GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct vs DeepSeek V3.2 →

Vendor list rates, as of Jun 15, 2026 · source: openrouter · per-request examples assume 1,200 input + 400 output tokens.