LLM Reference

o3 Mini vs Qwen3.5-397B-A17B

o3 Mini (2025) and Qwen3.5-397B-A17B (2026) are frontier-tier reasoning models from OpenAI and Alibaba. o3 Mini ships a 200k-token context window, while Qwen3.5-397B-A17B ships a 262k-token context window. On MMLU PRO, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B leads by 8.7 pts. On pricing, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B costs $0.39/1M input tokens versus $1.10/1M for the alternative. This comparison covers specs, pricing, API access, capabilities, benchmarks, input and output token costs, and production fit for coding and agent workloads.

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is ~182% cheaper at $0.39/1M; pay for o3 Mini only for coding workflow support.

Decision scorecard

Local evidence first
Signalo3 MiniQwen3.5-397B-A17B
Best forreasoning-heavy apps, tool-calling agents, and provider-routed productionreasoning-heavy apps, multimodal apps, and tool-calling agents
Decision fitCoding, RAG, and AgentsCoding, RAG, and Agents
Context window200k262k
Cheapest output$4.40/1M tokens$2.34/1M tokens
Provider routes4 tracked4 tracked
Shared benchmarks3 sharedMMLU PRO leader

Decision tradeoffs

Choose o3 Mini when...
  • o3 Mini uniquely exposes Code execution in local model data.
  • Local decision data tags o3 Mini for Coding, RAG, and Agents.
Choose Qwen3.5-397B-A17B when...
  • Qwen3.5-397B-A17B holds a shared-benchmark lead on MMLU PRO, ahead by 8.7 points.
  • Qwen3.5-397B-A17B has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
  • Qwen3.5-397B-A17B has the lower cheapest tracked output price at $2.34/1M tokens.
  • Qwen3.5-397B-A17B uniquely exposes Vision and Multimodal in local model data.
  • Local decision data tags Qwen3.5-397B-A17B for Coding, RAG, and Agents.

Monthly cost at traffic

Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.

Lower estimate Qwen3.5-397B-A17B

o3 Mini

$1,980

Cheapest tracked route/tier: OpenRouter

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B

$897

Cheapest tracked route/tier: OpenRouter

Estimated monthly gap: $1,083. Batch, cache, alternate speed tiers, and negotiated pricing are excluded from this local estimate.

Switch friction

o3 Mini -> Qwen3.5-397B-A17B
  • Provider overlap exists on OpenRouter; start route-level A/B tests there.
  • Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is $2.06/1M tokens lower on cheapest tracked output pricing before cache, batch, or negotiated discounts.
  • Check replacement coverage for Code execution before moving production traffic.
  • Qwen3.5-397B-A17B adds Vision and Multimodal in local capability data.
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B -> o3 Mini
  • Provider overlap exists on OpenRouter; start route-level A/B tests there.
  • o3 Mini is $2.06/1M tokens higher on cheapest tracked output pricing, so quality gains need to justify the spend.
  • Check replacement coverage for Vision and Multimodal before moving production traffic.
  • o3 Mini adds Code execution in local capability data.

Specs

Specification
Released2025-01-312026-02-16
Context window200k262k
Parameters—397B
ArchitectureDecoder OnlyMixture of Experts
LicenseProprietaryApache 2.0OSI-approved
OpennessProprietaryOpen source
WeightsNot releasedAvailable
CodeUnknownUnknown
Commercial useCommercial use: conditionalCommercial use: permitted
Knowledge cutoff2025-04-

Pricing and availability

Pricing attributeo3 MiniQwen3.5-397B-A17B
Input price$1.10/1M tokens$0.39/1M tokens
Output price$4.40/1M tokens$2.34/1M tokens
Providers
OpenRouterAzure OpenAIOpenAI APIVercel AI Gateway
OpenRouterTogether AIAlibaba Cloud PAI-EASNovita AI

Capabilities

Capabilityo3 MiniQwen3.5-397B-A17B
VisionNoYes
MultimodalNoYes
ReasoningYesYes
JSON / Tool useYesYes
Structured outputsYesYes
Code executionYesNo
IDE integrationNoNo
Computer useNoNo
Parallel agentsNoNo

Benchmarks

Benchmarko3 MiniQwen3.5-397B-A17B
MMLU PRO79.187.8
SWE-bench Verified49.376.2
Google-Proof Q&A79.789.3

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Last reviewed: 2026-06-29. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.