GPT-4 Turbo Paid vs GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct Paid
GPT-4 Turbo vs GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Full 2026 breakdown.
GPT-4 Turbo — full profile › · GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct — full profile ›
Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai
Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.
$30 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
$2 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
GPT-4 Turbo vs GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct specs
| Spec | GPT-4 Turbo | GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | OpenAI | – |
| Type | Proprietary | Proprietary | – |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 4K tokens | |
| Input price | $10/M | $1.5/M | |
| Output price | $30/M | $2/M | |
| Vision / multimodal | Yes | No | |
| Tool / function calling | Yes | No | |
| Self-hostable | No (API only) | No (API only) | – |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary | – |
Price gap & when to choose each
GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct is ~15× cheaper than GPT-4 Turbo on output tokens ($2 vs $30 per M tokens).
- You want frontier performance through a managed API
- You need the longer 128K context window
- You value reliability & ecosystem
- You don't want to manage infrastructure
- You want frontier performance through a managed API
- You want the lower output price
- You value reliability & ecosystem
- You don't want to manage infrastructure
Feature comparison
| Capability | GPT-4 Turbo | GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Open weights (downloadable) | ✗ | ✗ |
| Self-hostable | ✗ | ✗ |
| Runs fully offline | ✗ | ✗ |
| Vision / multimodal | ✓ | ✗ |
| Tool / function calling | ✓ | ✗ |
| 1M+ context window | ✗ | ✗ |
Benchmarks: GPT-4 Turbo vs GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct
Independent benchmark scores measured by Artificial Analysis. Higher is better (except latency).
Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.
How GPT-4 Turbo and GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct score
| Criterion | GPT-4 Turbo | GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Cost-efficiency | 3.0 | 4.5 |
| Context window | 3.5 | 2.0 |
| Openness | 1.5 | 1.5 |
| Self-hosting | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Multimodality | 5.0 | 2.0 |
Scores come from live data — output price (cost), context length, open vs closed weights (openness & self-hosting) and vision/tool support (multimodality). Raw task quality isn't scored here; it depends on your benchmark — see the verdict.
What each model is
GPT-4 Turbo Paid
The latest GPT-4 Turbo model with vision capabilities. Vision requests can now use JSON mode and function calling. Training data: up to December 2023.
GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct Paid
This model is a variant of GPT-3.5 Turbo tuned for instructional prompts and omitting chat-related optimizations. Training data: up to Sep 2021.
Frequently asked questions
GPT-4 Turbo vs GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct — which is cheaper?
GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct is cheaper on output ($2/M vs $30/M).
Which has the larger context window?
GPT-4 Turbo offers the larger context window (128K tokens).
GPT-4 Turbo vs GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct — which should I pick in 2026?
Choose GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct for the lower output price ($2/M vs $30/M). Choose GPT-4 Turbo if you need the larger 128K context window.
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