Is GPT-4o better than GPT-3.5 Turbo for coding?

GPT-4o scores 75 overall vs GPT-3.5 Turbo's 40. GPT-4o has stronger benchmark performance, but pricing also matters — GPT-4o costs $2.50/M input vs $0.500/M for GPT-3.5 Turbo.

Which is cheaper: GPT-4o or GPT-3.5 Turbo?

GPT-3.5 Turbo is cheaper per million input tokens at $0.50/M vs $2.50/M.

What is the price-performance ratio of GPT-4o vs GPT-3.5 Turbo?

Based on benchmark scores, GPT-4o costs $0.033 per score point while GPT-3.5 Turbo costs $0.013 per score point. GPT-3.5 Turbo offers better value.

GPT-4o vs GPT-3.5 Turbo

Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026

GPT-4o

OpenAI

OpenAI's flagship multimodal model. Strong coding and reasoning at competitive pricing.

Input	$2.50/M
Output	$10.00/M
Context	128K tokens
Best For	General coding, multimodal tasks, chatbots
Benchmark	75/100

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
Context	16K tokens
Best For	Simple chatbots, basic text generation
Benchmark	40/100

Benchmark Performance Comparison

Third-party benchmark scores — higher is better. Data sourced from SWE-bench, LiveCodeBench, HumanEval, and BigCodeBench.

Benchmark	GPT-4o	GPT-3.5 Turbo	Leader
Overall Score	75	40	GPT-4o leads by 35pts
SWE-bench Verified	70	32	GPT-4o leads by 38pts
LiveCodeBench	78	42	GPT-4o leads by 36pts
HumanEval	90	62	GPT-4o leads by 28pts
BigCodeBench	62	26	GPT-4o leads by 36pts

Cost Comparison by Scenario

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

Scenario	GPT-4o	GPT-3.5 Turbo	Savings
Small Script (1K lines)	$0.41	$0.06	GPT-3.5 Turbo saves $0.34 (85%)
Medium Feature (10K lines)	$3.06	$0.48	GPT-3.5 Turbo saves $2.59 (84%)
Large Project (50K lines)	$15.31	$2.38	GPT-3.5 Turbo saves $12.94 (84%)
Code Review (5K lines)	$0.78	$0.13	GPT-3.5 Turbo saves $0.66 (84%)

Value Analysis (Price per Benchmark Score Point)

Lower is better — how much you pay for each point of benchmark performance.

Model	Overall Score	Price per Score Point	Verdict
GPT-4o	75	$0.033/pt	Higher cost per point
GPT-3.5 Turbo	40	$0.013/pt	Better value

GPT-3.5 Turbo delivers the best value at $0.013 per score point.

Strengths & Weaknesses

GPT-4o

+ Strong general-purpose
+ Good multimodal
- Less consistent on coding than Claude

GPT-3.5 Turbo

+ Ultra-cheap
+ Very fast
- Basic coding only

Verdict

GPT-3.5 Turbo is cheaper at $0.500/M, but GPT-4o scores higher on benchmarks (75 vs 40).

Choose GPT-3.5 Turbo for cost-sensitive projects, GPT-4o when performance matters most.

Compare with Other Models

Claude Sonnet 4

Anthropic

Anthropic's balanced model for coding and general tasks. Best price-performance ratio in the Claude family.

$3.00/M input $15.00/M output ~$4.66 per medium feature

Claude Opus 4

Anthropic

Anthropic's most powerful model. Best for complex reasoning and challenging coding tasks.

$15.00/M input $75.00/M output ~$23.29 per medium feature

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

Anthropic

Previous generation Sonnet. Still excellent for coding tasks at the same price point.

$3.00/M input $15.00/M output ~$4.66 per medium feature

Claude 3.5 Haiku

Anthropic

Fast, cost-effective model for high-volume tasks. Great for code review and simple queries.

$0.800/M input $4.00/M output ~$1.24 per medium feature

Claude 3 Opus

Anthropic

First generation Opus. Highest reasoning capability in the Claude 3 family.

$15.00/M input $75.00/M output ~$20.25 per medium feature

Claude 3 Sonnet

Anthropic

First generation Sonnet. Balanced performance for general tasks.

$3.00/M input $15.00/M output ~$4.05 per medium feature