Choose AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini if…
- cost matters at scale — it is 17% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($80.50 vs $93.00 a month for 50,000 support chats)
- you want the newer model — released 2026-09-23, 4 months after the other
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini vs NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra
Neither wins outright: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is the pick when cost matters at scale, NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra when you need seed (reproducible sampling).
Key numbers
| Spec | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Aion Labs | NVIDIA |
| Input price (per 1M tokens) | $0.70 | $0.60 |
| Output price (per 1M tokens) | $1.40 | $2.40 |
| Blended price (3:1 input/output) | $0.87 | $1.05 |
| Cheaper than … of all models we track | 42% | 37% |
| Context window | 262K tokens (~393 pages) | 262K tokens (~393 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 47% | 47% |
| Max output per response | 33K tokens (~24,600 words) | 183K tokens (~136,900 words) |
| Input types | text | text |
| Output types | text | text |
| Free variant | No | Yes |
| Listed since | 2026-09-23 | 2026-06-04 |
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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 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens) | $80.50 | $93.00 | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini saves $12.50 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens) | $98.00 | $96.00 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra saves $2.00 |
| 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 | $101 | — |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens) | $64.40 | $62.40 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra saves $2.00 |
| 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 | $32.40 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra saves $4.00 |
Capabilities side by side
| Capability | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra | 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) | — | ✓ Yes | 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.
- NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra: input price raised 17% ($0.50 → $0.60/1M), output price raised 8% ($2.20 → $2.40/1M) on 2026-10-12 (9 price changes since 2026-08-06).
| Date | Model | Input / 1M | Output / 1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-12 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra | $0.60 | $2.40 |
| 2026-10-02 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra | $0.50 | $2.20 |
| 2026-09-19 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra | $0.60 | $2.40 |
| 2026-09-16 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra | $0.63 | $3.13 |
| 2026-09-14 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra | $0.60 | $2.40 |
| 2026-09-04 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra | $0.63 | $3.13 |
| 2026-09-03 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra | $0.60 | $2.40 |
| 2026-09-02 | NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra | $0.63 | $3.13 |
Which should you choose?
Choose NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra if…
- you need seed (reproducible sampling) — to repeat a generation for tests and evals; AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini does not advertise it
- you generate long outputs in one go — up to 183K tokens (about 136,900 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 NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra?
Neither wins outright: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is the pick when cost matters at scale, NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra when you need seed (reproducible sampling). In short: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini when cost matters at scale, you want the newer model; NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra when you need seed (reproducible sampling), you generate long outputs in one go, you want to prototype at zero cost.
Which is cheaper, AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is cheaper: $0.87 vs $1.05 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 17% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $80.50 against $93.00.
How much do AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra cost per million tokens?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini costs $0.70 per 1M input tokens and $1.40 per 1M output tokens; NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra costs $0.60 input and $2.40 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra?
Both take 262K tokens per request — roughly 393 pages of text.
Do AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra support function calling and JSON output?
Tool calling — AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: yes, NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra: yes. JSON-schema structured output — AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: yes, NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra: yes.
Can AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra read images?
Neither accepts image input — both are text-in models.
Is AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra free to use?
NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra has a free variant (nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b:free). Free variants usually carry tighter rate limits.
What is the maximum output length of AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini can write up to 33K tokens (about 24,600 words) per response; NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra up to 183K (about 136,900 words).
When were AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra released?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini was listed on 2026-09-23; NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra on 2026-06-04.
Has the price of AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra changed?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-09-24. NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra: input price raised 17% ($0.50 → $0.60/1M), output price raised 8% ($2.20 → $2.40/1M) on 2026-10-12 (9 price changes since 2026-08-06).
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 →NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra is an open frontier-reasoning and orchestration model from NVIDIA, with 55B active parameters out of 550B total (MoE). Built on a hybrid Transformer-Mamba mixture-of-experts architecture, it...
Full NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Ultra specs →