Cheaper alternatives to o3
o3 scores 1422 on the overall Arena and costs about $700.00/month at 100,000 calls (1,500 in / 500 out). Here are models that match or beat it on quality for less.
| GLM-5.3-Flash | 1472 | $23.75 | $676.25/mo | Z.ai (Zhipu AI) |
| Qwen3.8 27B | 1439 | $29.50 | $670.50/mo | Alibaba |
| MiMo-V2.5 | 1427 | $35.00 | $665.00/mo | Xiaomi |
| MiMo-V2-Omni | 1422 | $35.00 | $665.00/mo | Xiaomi |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 1424 | $52.50 | $647.50/mo | DeepSeek |
| Hunyuan Hy3 | 1441 | $70.00 | $630.00/mo | Tencent |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | 1430 | $90.00 | $610.00/mo | OpenAI |
| GPT-5.6 Luna (India) (Bedrock) | 1430 | $99.00 | $601.00/mo | AWS Bedrock |
| MiniMax-M3 | 1433 | $105.00 | $595.00/mo | MiniMax |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro | 1444 | $108.75 | $591.25/mo | DeepSeek |
| MiMo-V2.5-Pro | 1465 | $108.75 | $591.25/mo | Xiaomi |
| MiMo-V2-Pro | 1436 | $108.75 | $591.25/mo | Xiaomi |
Intelligence scores are community Arena ratings from LMArena / arena.ai, used under CC BY 4.0. Snapshot last refreshed 18 September 2026. Scores are a relative signal, not an absolute measure of capability. A Measured score was voted on directly; an Estimated score is inherited from an identical base model (a regional/creator-prefixed hosting duplicate). See our methodology.
FAQ
Is there a cheaper model as good as o3?
Yes. GLM-5.3-Flash matches or beats o3 on the overall Arena leaderboard and costs about $23.75/month versus $700.00/month at a typical volume of 100,000 calls — saving roughly $676.25/month.
How is 'as good' defined?
We only list models with an overall Arena score at or above o3's (1422). Arena scores are community preference ratings, not a single benchmark — confirm the alternative on your own task before switching.
Cite / link to this page
You’re welcome to reference this page and its figures with attribution and a link back.
https://aicalculatorpro.com/alternatives/o3/<a href="https://aicalculatorpro.com/alternatives/o3/">Cheaper alternatives to o3 — AI Calculator Pro</a>