Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) vs GPT-5 mini (High)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) by Google or GPT-5 mini (High) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) scores 23.0 points higher (39.8 vs 16.8) but costs 5.8× as much to run the benchmark ($1100 vs $189; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) when you need intelligence above 16.8, and GPT-5 mini (High) when 16.8 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) | GPT-5 mini (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.8 | 16.8 | −57.8% GPT-5 mini (High) is 57.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,100.06 | $188.66 | −82.9% GPT-5 mini (High) is 82.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | Not reported | 58.72s | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.75 / $3.75 | $0.25 / $2.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image |
GPT-5 mini (High) vs Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium): 57.8% less intelligence, 82.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- GPT-5 mini (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 41.20 for $158.
Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium)GPT-5 mini (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-8-flash-medium/gpt-5-mini · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-8-flash-medium/gpt-5-mini?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill