AionLabs: Aion 3.5 vs OpenAI: o3 Mini High

Neither wins outright: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 is the pick when you want the newer model, OpenAI: o3 Mini High when cost matters at scale.

Key numbers

SpecAionLabs: Aion 3.5OpenAI: o3 Mini High
ProviderAion LabsOpenAI
Input price (per 1M tokens)$3.00$1.10
Output price (per 1M tokens)$6.00$4.40
Blended price (3:1 input/output)$3.75$1.93
Cheaper than … of all models we track17%27%
Context window262K tokens (~393 pages)200K tokens (~300 pages)
Larger context than … of all models47%37%
Max output per response33K tokens (~24,600 words)100K tokens (~75,000 words)
Input typestexttext, file
Output typestexttext
Free variantNoNo
Listed since2026-09-232025-02-12
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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 3.5OpenAI: o3 Mini HighDifference
Customer-support chatbot
50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens)
$345$171OpenAI: o3 Mini High saves $175
RAG search over documents
20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens)
$420$176OpenAI: o3 Mini High saves $244
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)
$432$185OpenAI: o3 Mini High saves $247
Batch summarisation
10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens)
$276$114OpenAI: o3 Mini High saves $162
Long-document analysis
500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens)
$156$59.40OpenAI: o3 Mini High saves $96.60

Capabilities side by side

CapabilityAionLabs: Aion 3.5OpenAI: o3 Mini HighWhat it lets you do
Tool / function calling✓ Yes✓ Yescall your APIs and run agent loops
Structured output (JSON schema)✓ Yes✓ Yesreturn JSON that validates against your schema
Reasoning / thinking mode✓ Yes✓ Yesspend 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—✓ Yesaccept documents without your own parsing step
Image output——generate images, not just text
Built-in web search—✓ Yesanswer from live web results
Seed (reproducible sampling)—✓ Yesrepeat 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

Which should you choose?

Choose AionLabs: Aion 3.5 if…

  • you want the newer model — released 2026-09-23, 20 months after the other

Choose OpenAI: o3 Mini High if…

  • cost matters at scale — it is 49% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($171 vs $345 a month for 50,000 support chats)
  • you need file / PDF input — to accept documents without your own parsing step; AionLabs: Aion 3.5 does not advertise it
  • you need built-in web search — to answer from live web results; AionLabs: Aion 3.5 does not advertise it
  • you need seed (reproducible sampling) — to repeat a generation for tests and evals; AionLabs: Aion 3.5 does not advertise it
  • you generate long outputs in one go — up to 100K tokens (about 75,000 words) per response

Frequently asked questions

Is AionLabs: Aion 3.5 better than OpenAI: o3 Mini High?

Neither wins outright: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 is the pick when you want the newer model, OpenAI: o3 Mini High when cost matters at scale. In short: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 when you want the newer model; OpenAI: o3 Mini High when cost matters at scale, you need file / PDF input, you need built-in web search, you need seed (reproducible sampling), you generate long outputs in one go.

Which is cheaper, AionLabs: Aion 3.5 or OpenAI: o3 Mini High?

OpenAI: o3 Mini High is cheaper: $1.93 vs $3.75 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 49% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $171 against $345.

How much do AionLabs: Aion 3.5 and OpenAI: o3 Mini High cost per million tokens?

AionLabs: Aion 3.5 costs $3.00 per 1M input tokens and $6.00 per 1M output tokens; OpenAI: o3 Mini High costs $1.10 input and $4.40 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.

Which has the bigger context window, AionLabs: Aion 3.5 or OpenAI: o3 Mini High?

AionLabs: Aion 3.5: 262K tokens, about 393 pages, against 200K (about 300 pages) for OpenAI: o3 Mini High.

Do AionLabs: Aion 3.5 and OpenAI: o3 Mini High support function calling and JSON output?

Tool calling — AionLabs: Aion 3.5: yes, OpenAI: o3 Mini High: yes. JSON-schema structured output — AionLabs: Aion 3.5: yes, OpenAI: o3 Mini High: yes.

Can AionLabs: Aion 3.5 or OpenAI: o3 Mini High read images?

Neither accepts image input — both are text-in models.

Is AionLabs: Aion 3.5 or OpenAI: o3 Mini High free to use?

No free variant is listed for either; both are pay-per-token.

What is the maximum output length of AionLabs: Aion 3.5 and OpenAI: o3 Mini High?

AionLabs: Aion 3.5 can write up to 33K tokens (about 24,600 words) per response; OpenAI: o3 Mini High up to 100K (about 75,000 words).

When were AionLabs: Aion 3.5 and OpenAI: o3 Mini High released?

AionLabs: Aion 3.5 was listed on 2026-09-23; OpenAI: o3 Mini High on 2025-02-12.

About the two models

Aion Labs

AionLabs: Aion 3.5

Aion 3.5 is a multi-model roleplaying and storytelling system from AionLabs, built on the GLM family of models. It uses a collaborative generation process in which multiple specialized models each...

Full AionLabs: Aion 3.5 specs →
OpenAI

OpenAI: o3 Mini High

OpenAI o3-mini-high is the same model as [o3-mini](/openai/o3-mini) with reasoning_effort set to high. o3-mini is a cost-efficient language model optimized for STEM reasoning tasks, particularly excelling in science, mathematics, and...

Full OpenAI: o3 Mini High specs →

Compare AionLabs: Aion 3.5 with other models

Compare OpenAI: o3 Mini High with other models

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