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GPT Audio Mini: pricing, context and benchmarks

GPT Audio Mini is a language model from OpenAI released on January 19, 2026. It costs $0.6 per million input tokens and $2.4 per million output tokens, with a 128K-token context window. No independent score has been published for it so far.

Mid-range costTool calling

What you need to know about GPT Audio Mini

GPT Audio Mini was released by OpenAI (United States) on January 19, 2026. It accepts text and audio as input and produces text and audio. Its context window reaches 128,000 tokens, larger than 19 % of the models in the registry, and it can write up to 16,384 tokens in one go.

It has been available for about 9 months, long enough for its prices and scores to have settled.

GPT Audio Mini pricing

On OpenRouter, GPT Audio Mini costs $0.6 per million input tokens and $2.4 per million output tokens. Counting three tokens read for every token written, its average price is $1.05 per million, more expensive than 59 % of paid models (1.4 times the median of $0.76).

A concrete example: a task that sends 2,000 tokens (about 1,500 words) and receives a 500-token answer costs $0.0024. At 1,000 tasks a day, budget $72 a month. The price calculator redoes this with your own volumes.

Performance and benchmarks

Epoch AI does not yet publish a capabilities index for GPT Audio Mini. We therefore show no made-up performance rating: only price, context and features count towards its score.

Features, privacy and local use

Its weights are not published: it can only be used through the OpenAI API or a broker such as OpenRouter, which means sending your data off your machines.

Other OpenAI models

Average price per million tokens (3 input for 1 output).
ModelReleasedAvg. priceECI
GPT-6.1 SolSep 29, 2026$4168.4
GPT-6.1 Sol ProSep 29, 2026$4—
GPT-6 SolSep 22, 2026$4163.7
GPT-6 LunaSep 22, 2026$0.2156.8
GPT-6 Luna ProSep 22, 2026$0.2—
GPT-6 Sol ProSep 22, 2026$4—
GPT-6 AstraSep 4, 2026$20168.8
GPT-6 Astra ProSep 4, 2026$20—

Verdict

GPT Audio Mini scores 38/100 on our grid, which only uses published figures.

Strengths

  • Agent-ready: tool calling and structured JSON output.

Limitations

  • No independent score published: performance cannot be verified.

Avoid if…

  • your data must not leave your servers.

Frequently asked questions

How much does GPT Audio Mini cost?

$0.6 per million input tokens and $2.4 per million output tokens on OpenRouter (checked October 25, 2026). A task with 2,000 tokens read and 500 written costs $0.0024.

How big is GPT Audio Mini's context window?

128,000 tokens, roughly 96,000 words, with a maximum of 16,384 output tokens.

Can GPT Audio Mini run locally?

No, OpenAI does not publish its weights: it is API-only.

Is GPT Audio Mini suitable for an AI agent?

Technically yes: it supports tool calling and structured outputs. Then check its cost for your volume.

What are the alternatives to GPT Audio Mini?

The closest models on price and performance are Sonar, Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507, and Aion-2.0.

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Neutrality. No affiliate links. No vendor pays to be reviewed, rated or ranked. Reviews are directed by François Chollet, neutral and factual, and every data point is dated and sourced. How we score