You can do progressively more with AI each month, with each new model release. When OpenAI rolls out any new models, they tend to push those boundaries of how beginners and power users implement AI for everyday tasks. My name is Artem and I have been using and reviewing dozens of AI models in recent years, and I use them for coding, developing projects, content planning, finding resources and information over the web, and much more.

Today I want to share how you can access OpenAI o3 and 04-mini models (with other o-series models) and what makes them stand out compared to all previous versions. I will also review how to access them as of 2025 and will also explore how they can be compared to other models.

Introduction to the New OpenAI Models

OpenAI is known well for their state-of-the-art model and progressively better capabilities and efficiency on each new model. This trend continues with o3 and o4 mini release as well. Those models are made specifically for reasoning and they implement more of cognitive process into that advanced reasoning.

Let me share two features that are the most useful in my opinion:

• Now you can use tools with reasoning and while reasoning. To simplify, that means that in a process of analyzing a problem, they can also search for answers online, perform specialized tasks of many kinds, do math or even execute code. This will make most of your outcomes more accurate.

• Multimodal abilities help a lot, because both Openai o3 and o4-mini are multimodal. They work with various forms of input data, whether it’s text, images, or other formats. This improves overall perfomance and makes models suitable for a much wider list of tasks, gives them more use cases in comparison to models that are not multimodal. o3 and 04 mini can process and generate info right from texts and simultaneously integrate visuals when you need it. Learn more about multimodal capabilities in this article guide.

You can take the most advantage of all new o-series models through platforms like Writingmate Chatbot. For free and premium users a wide range of new OpenAI o models use cases are going to change ways in which tasks are automated, programmed, and how you use them daily.

Capabilities and Performancee Benchmarks

I see quite an upgrade in o-3 and o-4 mini performance in comparison with o-3 mini or models that date back to o1. Above is a graph that we made based on OpenAI data, but it is yet to be tested for most of real-world tasks. OpenAI also released a detailed video review of their own, and, as usual, it seems quite trustworthy. But below, I also want to review some of tose models typical performance

• o3 vs o1 Performance (SWE-bench Verified benchmark):
  OpenAI o3 had over 71.7% accuracy, while o1 scored 48.9%. This is a +22.8 percentage point improvement, so it is a remarkable upgrade in real-world coding and very advanced reasoning tasks (Source: OpenAI).

• o4-mini vs Gemini Flash and Claude Haiku (MMLU Benchmark):
  On the MMLU test, o4-mini scored 82.0%, outperforming Gemini Flash (76.5%) and Claude Haiku (73.0%). o4-mini is a similar model but it delivered much better results, and also has a better price; being over 60% cheaper than GPT-3.5 Turbo.

Advanced Reasoning and Tool Use

One of the main strengths of these models is probably in a much enhanced reasoning process. If you start with their built-in capabilities, OpenAI shows that the models can easily switch between different tasks. In a similar way in which Writingmate switches between dozens of AI models, tasks, reasoning, making visuals and more. This includes getting all the fresh information from the internet, then executing tasks one by one via coding, also accessing a variety of tools. This all happens during one continuous reasoning session. Probably this is one single thing that this model will be remembered for, something that sets it apart from previous models and competitors.

Benchmark Performance

Tests already show OpenAI o3 beating all possible performance of previous models like o1. Fun fact: training process for o3 required more than ten times the compute power compared to o1 model. Huge difference. As a result, such reasoning capabilities and response quality have improved by a measure. You can expect even faster and even more accurate results. Additionally, there is a hint at a strong ability of models to adapt to more complex tasks, like:

• generating detailed insights based on web data or large prompts

• providing reliable technical support

• making complicated code and revisions of this code in shorter amount of time

Access OpenAI o3 and OpenAI o4-mini in 2025

As of April 2025, OpenAI has released the o3 and o4-mini models and I know of three working ways to access it:​

• ChatGPT Access: o3 is available to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Team users. o4-mini is accessible to all ChatGPT users, including those on the free tier with quite low cap.

• API Access: o4-mini is available through the Chat Completions API and Responses API. Access to o3 via API is rolling out to select users across trust tiers 1 through 5. Got this info from ​OpenAI Help Center and will also discuss prices and efficiency below.

• Writingmate Integration: Both models can be accessed through Writingmate.ai, this toolalso lets you use multiple AI models (all best AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, X AI, Stability AI and more) in a single platform without the need for coding or API keys if you don't want to have such an advanced workflow but still be able to do all of your tasks with the help of all best AI models.

Efficiency of OpenAI o3 and o4-mini Models

Let's see how efficient and fast those new models really are.

Faster Response Times

There is quite a huge difference in how o3-mini performed in comparison with o1-mini, so I expect o4-mini to outperform previous mini model in a similar way.

• o3-mini delivers responses approximately 24% faster than o1-mini, with an average response time of 7.7 seconds compared to 10.16 seconds for o1-mini .

• The time to the first token is reduced by about 2500ms, making o3-mini suitable for time-sensitive applications.

Improved Accuracy

Accuracy is something that is needed from any AI model, and especially with professional-grade models that solve tasks like o-series does. How good are new models in those regards?

• In performance evaluations, o3 reduced major errors by 39% compared to o1-mini on complex real-world questions .

• o3 achieved a Codeforces Elo rating of 2727, significantly higher than o1's rating of 1891, so, o3 is obviously better in most coding task. A good question is, however, how does it compare to models different to OpenAI?

If you want to use AI chatbots more and better in your work and everyday life, you may be already annoyed by the sheer number of available models and tools. It seems that every couple of months, a new model is popping off, and each new model has better abilities or benchmarks.  GPT 4o was a huge leap, then o1 made coding and math easier, Claude Sonnet 3.7 was a step in the right direction too. When 2025 just started, DeepSeek broke the market, now OpenAI tries to make a better multimodal set of models with new o-series like o3 or o4-mini. Now I want to share useful information for comparing any AI model to any other one, but below I proceed with other OpenAI o3 and o4 mini features, pricing, capabilities and conclusions.

Compare Newest AI Models With Writingmate

It is important to know how to compare different models. When you look at OpenAI o3 and o4 models and you want to compare them with others,

• Easy to Use: The best AI tools, like Writingmate.ai, can also be beginner-friendly. no coding or setup needed. Just open and start chatting, whether you want a precise and advanced model like o3, something like Claude 3.7, Mistral, Llama 4 or perhaps a usual GPT4o with additional set of features.

• Tools and Features: Look for models that can search the web, make images, compare answers, and do research.

• Flexibility and Price: Some models are free or offer trials. Writingmate lets you use many top AI models in one place, making it easy to switch tasks.

Besides giving you access to all the best AI models on the market and giving a bunch of additional features to them, Writingmate also helps to compare AI models based on your exact tasks. Let us see how it works:

Overall, if you use AI for your work tasks or you want to better integrate it into your workflow, try Writingmate. It is all-in-one AI tool in a single chatbot with one 20$ subscription (or even $9), no API needed and very beginner-friendly, while also including most powerful of the models in an easy-to-use chatbot Many of the features are also available for free.
Try it here: chat.writingmate.ai.

Let's return to OpenAI o3 and o4 features and their real costs.

Cost-Effective Solutions

To be brief, o3 model requires fewer tokens to complete tasks when compared to its predecessor (which is OpenAI o1). Reduction of token usage makes computational costs lower and makes processing times faster. For example, o3 achieved a score of 87.7% on the GPQA Diamond benchmark, sp it basically outperformed o1, which is to be expected. Additionally, on the SWE-bench Verified benchmark, o3 scored 71.7%, in comparison to o1's 48.9 percent score as of this o3 and o4-mini release.

Pricing Made Simple (OpenAI API Price)

With o3-mini on the API, you get powerful&efficient AI that’s a lot more cheap than older models. It seems to be ideal for apps, bots, automation, and everyday use probably with no burning all your budget. If you don't want to go API route, use Writingmate, because it gives access to OpenAI o-series models and over a hundred of other models that can be switched with a click of a button, all in cost of one $20 (or $9) subscription.

As of April 2025, OpenAI o3 is available via the API at $1.10 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens. It's also available live in ChatGPT for Plus and Pro users, with Pro subscribers having almost unlimited access. OpenAI o4 mini is even more cheap one as it costs just $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens, and is available through the Chat Completions API.

Token Efficiency of o3

• Reduced Token Usage: Studies that I seen do indicate that o3-mini has more accuracy without much longer reasoning chains than o1-mini for example. This also suggests that o3 can solve complex tasks more efficiently, using fewer tokens.

• Performance Benchmarks: On the ARC-AGI benchmark, o3 achieved a score of 75.7% in low-compute mode and 87.5% in high-compute mode, significantly outperforming o1, which scored 32%. Source for this is ​Analytics India Magazine that you can read yourself as well.

• Possible Costs: While the high-compute mode of o3 offers superior performance, it comes at a substantial cost. Let's say running o3 in high-efficiency mode against 400 public ARC-AGI puzzles may cost approximately $6,677, and low-efficiency mode can be over a hundred times more expensive.

Daily Use: Practical Applications and Use Cases

AI models often have similar use cases but specific ones, like o-series of OpenAI, is good at those four industries in my opinion:

• Customer Support: Automated responses can be timelier, more context-aware thanks to real-time tool usage.

• Software Development: Developers already get instant feedback by executing code or running diagnostic searches,

• Education: Students get detailed explanations and calculations, and that means that learning becomes more interactive (and effective most of the time)

• Business Intelligence: Real-time data helps companies make faster, informed decisions that will also be based on fact-checked and accurate information.

Examples of Using o-series Models

There are numerous examples of how those new models can be used, but I will share just four of them so that you can have an idea.

Example 1: Finding Live Info
Need the latest news on a tech event? OpenAI o3 can search the web in real-time and give you fresh links and summaries—no old data.

Example 2: Solving Code Problems
Stuck on a coding bug? o3 can run code, test it, and suggest fixes. It explains what’s wrong and how to improve it, fast.

Example 3: Helping in School
In class, a teacher can use o4-mini to explain both text and images in a similar way he or she uses ChatGPT already. This may be similar to solving a math problem with a diagram (remember that models are multimodel). It makes learning easier and clearer for most students, and teachers as well.

Example 4: Smarter Customer Support
For support teams, these models can read user questions, check live data, and also suggest fixes. They can reply fast with helpful & updated answers that will also be relevant to person's querie.

Writingmate Integration of Multiple Models

Good news for any user of Writingmate Labs: ChatGPT 4.1 has already been added to Writingmate, and the integration of OpenAI o3 and o4-mini is on track to be available in full within the next hours. With Writingmate Chatbot, you get access to a unified environment where multiple AI models are available together. This includes models like o1, o1-pro, and others such as Claude 3.7 sonnet, Mistral, new LLama, and much more.

Using Writingmate Chatbot, you can switch between models and, combine all of their strengths, make custom visuals, analyze files, code, make detailed reports, and more. Writingmate is a tool that is like a mate that helps you use all the best AI capabilities for any needs you may have.

For detailed articles on AI, visit our blog that we make with a love of technology, people and their needs.
See you in the next articles!
Artem