Choose AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini if…
- you need to fit long inputs in one request — 262K tokens is roughly 393 pages, against 197
- you want the newer model — released 2026-09-23, 10 months after the other
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini vs Arcee AI: Trinity Mini
Neither wins outright: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is the pick when you need to fit long inputs in one request, Arcee AI: Trinity Mini when cost matters at scale.
Key numbers
| Spec | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini | Arcee AI: Trinity Mini |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Aion Labs | Arcee Ai |
| Input price (per 1M tokens) | $0.70 | $0.04 |
| Output price (per 1M tokens) | $1.40 | $0.15 |
| Blended price (3:1 input/output) | $0.87 | $0.07 |
| Cheaper than … of all models we track | 42% | 84% |
| Context window | 262K tokens (~393 pages) | 131K tokens (~197 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 48% | 23% |
| Max output per response | 33K tokens (~24,600 words) | 131K tokens (~98,300 words) |
| Input types | text | text |
| Output types | text | text |
| Free variant | No | Yes |
| Listed since | 2026-09-23 | 2025-12-01 |
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What it costs for real workloads
Monthly cost at list price for five common workloads. Token counts per unit are stated so you can scale them to your own traffic. A workload that does not fit a model's context window is marked rather than priced.
| Workload (per month) | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini | Arcee AI: Trinity Mini | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens) | $80.50 | $6.38 | Arcee AI: Trinity Mini saves $74.13 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens) | $98.00 | $6.90 | Arcee AI: Trinity Mini saves $91.10 |
| Coding / tool-using agent 2,000 tasks — each a multi-step task with tool calls and file context (60,000 in / 6,000 out tokens) | $101 | $7.20 | Arcee AI: Trinity Mini saves $93.60 |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens) | $64.40 | $4.50 | Arcee AI: Trinity Mini saves $59.90 |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens) | $36.40 | $2.40 | Arcee AI: Trinity Mini saves $34.00 |
Capabilities side by side
| Capability | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini | Arcee AI: Trinity Mini | What it lets you do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tool / function calling | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | call your APIs and run agent loops |
| Structured output (JSON schema) | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | return JSON that validates against your schema |
| Reasoning / thinking mode | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | spend extra tokens thinking before answering hard problems |
| Image input | — | — | read screenshots, charts and scanned pages |
| Audio input | — | — | take speech or audio directly |
| File / PDF input | — | — | accept documents without your own parsing step |
| Image output | — | — | generate images, not just text |
| Built-in web search | — | — | answer from live web results |
| Seed (reproducible sampling) | — | — | repeat a generation for tests and evals |
| Log-probabilities | — | — | read token confidence for classification and scoring |
From each model's published parameters and input/output types. “—” means not advertised, not proven absent.
Price history
- AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-09-24.
- Arcee AI: Trinity Mini: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-03-10.
Which should you choose?
Choose Arcee AI: Trinity Mini if…
- cost matters at scale — it is 92% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($6.38 vs $80.50 a month for 50,000 support chats)
- you generate long outputs in one go — up to 131K tokens (about 98,300 words) per response
- you want to prototype at zero cost — a free variant is listed
Frequently asked questions
Is AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini better than Arcee AI: Trinity Mini?
Neither wins outright: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is the pick when you need to fit long inputs in one request, Arcee AI: Trinity Mini when cost matters at scale. In short: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini when you need to fit long inputs in one request, you want the newer model; Arcee AI: Trinity Mini when cost matters at scale, you generate long outputs in one go, you want to prototype at zero cost.
Which is cheaper, AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or Arcee AI: Trinity Mini?
Arcee AI: Trinity Mini is cheaper: $0.07 vs $0.87 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 92% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $6.38 against $80.50.
How much do AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and Arcee AI: Trinity Mini cost per million tokens?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini costs $0.70 per 1M input tokens and $1.40 per 1M output tokens; Arcee AI: Trinity Mini costs $0.04 input and $0.15 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or Arcee AI: Trinity Mini?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: 262K tokens, about 393 pages, against 131K (about 197 pages) for Arcee AI: Trinity Mini.
Do AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and Arcee AI: Trinity Mini support function calling and JSON output?
Tool calling — AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: yes, Arcee AI: Trinity Mini: yes. JSON-schema structured output — AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: yes, Arcee AI: Trinity Mini: yes.
Can AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or Arcee AI: Trinity Mini read images?
Neither accepts image input — both are text-in models.
Is AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or Arcee AI: Trinity Mini free to use?
Arcee AI: Trinity Mini has a free variant (arcee-ai/trinity-mini:free). Free variants usually carry tighter rate limits.
What is the maximum output length of AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and Arcee AI: Trinity Mini?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini can write up to 33K tokens (about 24,600 words) per response; Arcee AI: Trinity Mini up to 131K (about 98,300 words).
When were AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and Arcee AI: Trinity Mini released?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini was listed on 2026-09-23; Arcee AI: Trinity Mini on 2025-12-01.
About the two models
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini
Aion 3.5 Mini is a multi-model roleplaying and storytelling system from AionLabs, built on the GLM family of models. It is the smaller, lower-cost sibling of Aion 3.5 and uses...
Full AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini specs →Arcee AI: Trinity Mini
Trinity Mini is a 26B-parameter (3B active) sparse mixture-of-experts language model featuring 128 experts with 8 active per token. Engineered for efficient reasoning over long contexts (131k) with robust function calling and multi-step agent workflows.
Full Arcee AI: Trinity Mini specs →