Yi-Lightning vs O3 Mini
Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026
Yi-Lightning
01.ai01.ai's cost-effective model. Competitive Chinese-English bilingual model at very low prices.
| Input | $0.150/M |
| Output | $0.600/M |
| Context | 16K tokens |
| Best For | Chinese-English translation, cost-sensitive applications |
O3 Mini
OpenAIOpenAI's reasoning model at lower cost. Strong at math, coding, and science tasks.
| Input | $1.10/M |
| Output | $4.40/M |
| Context | 200K tokens |
| Best For | Math, science, coding tasks requiring deep reasoning |
| Benchmark | 80/100 |
Cost Comparison by Scenario
Estimated cost per project with 30% cache hit rate. Actual costs may vary based on usage patterns.
| Scenario | Yi-Lightning | O3 Mini | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small Script (1K lines) | $0.02 | $0.17 | Yi-Lightning saves $0.15 (86%) |
| Medium Feature (10K lines) | $0.17 | $1.27 | Yi-Lightning saves $1.09 (86%) |
| Large Project (50K lines) | $0.86 | $6.33 | Yi-Lightning saves $5.46 (86%) |
| Code Review (5K lines) | $0.04 | $0.30 | Yi-Lightning saves $0.26 (86%) |
Verdict
Yi-Lightning wins on both price and performance — $0.150/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
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Claude 3.5 Haiku
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Claude 3 Opus
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Claude 3 Sonnet
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