# O3 Mini vs Step 3.5 Flash

As of Oct 14, 2026, O3 Mini leads Step 3.5 Flash in 1 of 3 shared categories: General LLM.

O3 Mini: $1.9250000000000003 per 1M blended tokens.

Step 3.5 Flash: $0.15 per 1M blended tokens.

O3 Mini: closed weights.

Step 3.5 Flash: open weights.

- Which to pick, General LLM: As of Oct 14, 2026, O3 Mini leads Step 3.5 Flash in General LLM at #7 against #123.
- Which to pick, Reasoning: As of Oct 14, 2026, Step 3.5 Flash leads O3 Mini in Reasoning at #124 against #133.
- Which to pick, Long context: As of Oct 14, 2026, Step 3.5 Flash leads O3 Mini in Long context at #119 against #145.

As of Oct 14, 2026, O3 Mini is a former state-of-the-art holder in Reasoning (since Feb 9, 2025; sources LMArena Text (style-controlled, hard prompts); methodology v1.0).

As of Oct 14, 2026, Step 3.5 Flash is ranked #99 in Factuality (since Oct 14, 2026; sources LMArena Text factuality; methodology v1.0).