GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct
About this model
GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct is an AI model from OpenAI, made available through the API on September 28, 2023. It can read up to 4,095 tokens in one request, roughly 8 pages of text, and write up to 3,685 tokens in a single answer.
Through the API it costs $1.50 per million input tokens and $2 per million output tokens. Its pricing sits in the middle of the market.
Quality scores
Rankings →Not rated yet. Independent test results usually appear a few weeks after a model is released.
Where to use it
Companies that serve this model through an API: 1. Prices per million tokens, cheapest first.
Availability and prices come from OpenRouter’s public API and are refreshed daily. Uptime is the share of successful requests over the last 24 hours. Some providers run a compressed version of open models (fp8, int4), which is cheaper but can be slightly less accurate.
Use it in your code
Call GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct through OpenRouter’s OpenAI-compatible API: create a key on openrouter.ai, then run one of these examples.
curl https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENROUTER_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"model": "openai/gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct", "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello! What can you do?"}]}'import os
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(base_url="https://openrouter.ai/api/v1", api_key=os.environ["OPENROUTER_API_KEY"])
reply = client.chat.completions.create(
model="openai/gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello! What can you do?"}],
)
print(reply.choices[0].message.content)import OpenAI from "openai";
const client = new OpenAI({ baseURL: "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1", apiKey: process.env.OPENROUTER_API_KEY });
const reply = await client.chat.completions.create({
model: "openai/gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct",
messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Hello! What can you do?" }],
});
console.log(reply.choices[0].message.content);The same code works with every model on this site: only the model ID changes. Many labs also offer their own API and SDK.
What it costs in practice
- 1,000 chat replies$1.35
- Summarise a 100-page document$0.077
- An app with 10,000 requests a day for a month$690
Similar-priced alternatives
| Model | Inputi | Outputi | Contexti | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Gemini 3.5 FlashGoogle DeepMind | $1.50 | $9 | 1M | Compare with ⇄ |
Mistral Medium 3.5Mistral AI | $1.50 | $7.50 | 256K | Compare with ⇄ |
Qwen3.7 MaxAlibaba Qwen | $1.48 | $4.43 | 1M | Compare with ⇄ |
GLM 5.3Z.ai (Zhipu) | $1.40 | $4.40 | 1M | Compare with ⇄ |
Muse Spark 1.3Meta | $1.25 | $4.25 | 1M | Compare with ⇄ |
Grok 4.3xAI | $1.25 | $2.50 | 1M | Compare with ⇄ |
News about OpenAI
See all →Frequently asked questions
- How much does GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct cost?
- GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct costs $1.50 per million input tokens and $2 per million output tokens through the API. For example, 1,000 chat replies of about 500 tokens in and 300 out cost around $1.35.
- What is the context window of GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct?
- GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct can read up to 4,095 tokens in one request, about 8 pages of text. It can write up to 3,685 tokens in a single answer.
- Is GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct open source?
- No. GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct is a closed model: its weights are not published, so you use it through OpenAI’s own apps and API, or through cloud providers.
- Who makes GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct?
- GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct is made by OpenAI. It became available through the API on September 28, 2023.
- Can GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct read images?
- No. GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct only accepts text as input.
- What are the alternatives to GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct?
- Models with a similar price from other companies include Gemini 3.5 Flash, Mistral Medium 3.5 and Qwen3.7 Max. You can compare them side by side on this page.