GPT-3.5 Turbo vs Stable Code 3B

Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026

GPT-3.5 Turbo

OpenAI

Budget model for simple tasks. Being phased out but still widely used.

Input$0.500/M
Output$1.50/M
Context16K tokens
Best ForSimple chatbots, basic text generation
Benchmark40/100

Stable Code 3B

Stability AI

Stability AI's code-focused model. Small, efficient model for code completion and generation.

Input$0.050/M
Output$0.200/M
Context32K tokens
Best ForCode completion, IDE integration, lightweight coding assistant

Cost Comparison by Scenario

Estimated cost per project with 30% cache hit rate. Actual costs may vary based on usage patterns.

ScenarioGPT-3.5 TurboStable Code 3BSavings
Small Script (1K lines) $0.06 <$0.01 Stable Code 3B saves $0.05 (88%)
Medium Feature (10K lines) $0.48 $0.06 Stable Code 3B saves $0.42 (88%)
Large Project (50K lines) $2.38 $0.29 Stable Code 3B saves $2.09 (88%)
Code Review (5K lines) $0.13 $0.01 Stable Code 3B saves $0.11 (89%)

Verdict

Stable Code 3B wins on both price and performance — $0.050/M input with a benchmark score of N/A/100.

For most developers, this is the clear choice between these two models.

Compare with Other Models