GPT-5 Nano
OpenAI · released Aug 7, 2025
- Type
- Proprietary
- Input
- $0.050
- Output
- $0.40
- Cached
- $0.005
List price · per 1M tokens · OpenAI at 400K context · source ↗
Our take
Written Aug 3, 2026GPT-5 Nano is a small hosted model from OpenAI that handles text, images and files in a single request of up to 400,000 tokens. Its measured coding score sits well above its general chat rating, while its creative writing score lags far behind — a lopsided profile that makes it a niche rather than all-rounder pick.
Choose this for low-cost coding assistance where measured skill matters more than creative flair, or for long-document work that needs 400,000 tokens in one go. It also suits budget multimodal tasks mixing text, images and files. Skip it if you need strong creative writing, want to self-host, or need a permissive licence.
The case for it
- Coding is its standout measured skill, scoring 55.7 points above its own general chat rating and 136.2 points above its creative writing score.
- 400,000-token request limit is unusually large for its price tier.
- The cheapest tracked offer costs half what the next tier up charges from the same provider.
The case against it
- Creative writing is a clear weak point, scoring 89.6 points below its own general chat rating and 135.9 points below its coding score.
- Proprietary weights with no disclosed licence terms — you cannot download or self-host it.
- Throughput varies sharply by provider and price tier, with the fastest offer costing twice the cheapest.
How good is it?
IntelligencePuzzles, maths, exam questions
Arena Text (overall)108th of 143 · 1337.4via High
CodingWriting and fixing code on its own
Arena Coding106th of 143 · 1383.7via High
Arena Coding is the only board that has scored it for this.
AgenticPlanning, calling tools, staying on task
GPT-5 Nano is not on Arena Agent (IPS), which is where the rating would come from, so there is no rating here. It is on SWE-bench Verified, in 30th of 39 with 34.8.
WritingWe do not rate this
Two boards come close and neither tests writing: Arena Creative Writing asks people which of two replies they prefer, and LiveBench Language tests whether a model understood a passage. So we show where GPT-5 Nano placed and give it no mark out of five.
These tests check whether a model follows instructions — a precondition for all the work above, but not a measure of how well that work is done, which is why they get no rating.
Every published score for this model7 scoresEvery figure we hold, from 7 boards, with who ran it and a link to the source — including the boards no rating above is built on.
Or rent it from someone else
Why this differs from the header. The strip above quotes OpenAI's own list price. This is the cheapest live offer at the widest standard context we hold, whoever is serving it — a reseller undercutting a lab is ordinary commerce, not an error.
- per 1M tokens
- $0.050 in / $0.40 out
- Context served
- 400K
- Throughput
- Not measured
| Provider | In / out per 1M tokens | Context | Throughput | Trains on prompts | Logs prompts | Zero retention |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAIflex tier | $0.025 / $0.20 | 400K | 159 tok/s | No | Yesunknown period | Unknown |
| OpenRouter | $0.050 / $0.40 | 400K | not measured | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| Microsoft Azure AI | $0.050 / $0.40 | 400K | 61 tok/s | No | No | Confirmed |
| OpenAI | $0.050 / $0.40 | 400K128K out | 96 tok/s | No | Yesunknown period | Unknown |
| Microsoft Azure AIswedencentral | $0.055 / $0.44 | 400K | 44 tok/s | No | No | Confirmed |
Microsoft Azure AIAcross the 5 listings we hold: 4 say they do not train on prompts, 0 say they do and 1 do not say. 2 appear in the zero-retention registry we check; the rest are unknown to us rather than confirmed either way.
What each host's API supports
From the parameter list each endpoint publishes. Streaming is omitted: nothing we hold reports it, for any model.
- ✓
- Supported
- ✗
- Not supported
- Not published
- host gave no parameter list
| Provider | Tool calling | JSON output | Strict schema |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAIflex | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| OpenRouter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Microsoft Azure AI | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| OpenAI | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Microsoft Azure AIswedencentral | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Tool calling: 5 of 5 listings say yes. JSON output: 5 of 5 listings say yes. Strict schema: 5 of 5 listings say yes.
Models people weigh against GPT-5 Nano
When we formed this view
Dates behind this page
Prices last checked 8d ago
What we do not know about this model yet
- Nothing we hold says whether an endpoint streams, so we do not show it either way.
- 1 of 5 listings do not say whether they train on prompts.
Licence and identifiers
What the licence allowsWe hold no licence record for this model. Inside are the identifiers you need to pull it — its Hugging Face repo where we have one, our slug and a machine-readable card.
Licence
Commercial API terms. We hold no licence record for this model, so there is nothing to summarise here.
Identifiers
- Modality record
- text+image+file->text
- Catalogue slug
- openai-gpt-5-nano