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Gemma 2 9B vs o3-mini

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

Gemma 2 9B specs · o3-mini specs
Verdict by category
  • Priceo3-mini

    o3-mini publishes pricing ($4.40 / 1M output tokens) while Gemma 2 9B does not.

  • Context windowo3-mini

    o3-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 8.2K, 24.4× the room for long documents and codebases.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • ModalitiesTie

    Both handle text.

  • OpennessGemma 2 9B

    Gemma 2 9B ships open weights (Gemma License); o3-mini is API-only.

On balance o3-mini edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Gemma 2 9B's 1. o3-mini publishes pricing ($4.40 / 1M output tokens) while Gemma 2 9B does not. o3-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 8.2K, 24.4× the room for long documents and codebases.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. Both target the same set of modalities (text), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Gemma 2 9B ships open weights (Gemma License); o3-mini is API-only.

o3-mini is the newer of the two, released 7 months after Gemma 2 9B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Gemma 2 9B is usually picked for on device and edge deployment workloads, while o3-mini sees more deployments in reasoning and math. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecGemma 2 9Bo3-mini
ProviderGoogleOpenAI
ReleasedJun 2024Jan 2025
Modalitiestexttext
Context window8.2K tokens200K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not published$1.10 / 1M tokens
Output · 1MPricing not published$4.40 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff,2023-10
Open weightsYes (Gemma License)No
API availableYesYes

Pricing at scale

What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day, vs $9.90
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $99.00
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $191

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Gemma 2 9BPricing unavailable
  • o3-mini$0.330

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Gemma 2 9Bo3-mini
  • MMLU71.3
  • GPQA,79.7
Pick Gemma 2 9B if

Gemma 2 9B fits when…

  • Strong 9B-class quality
  • Wide tooling
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Gemma License).
Pick o3-mini if

o3-mini fits when…

  • Reasoning at mid-tier cost
  • Fast for a thinking model
  • Long-context tasks, handles 200K tokens vs 8.2K for Gemma 2 9B.
Don't want either?

Consider Gemini 3 Pro

Google's late-2025 flagship, set new benchmarks on long-context, vision, and reasoning at competitive pricing.

See Gemini 3 Pro specsGemma 2 9B vs Gemini 3 Proo3-mini vs Gemini 3 Pro

Frequently asked

  • Is Gemma 2 9B or o3-mini cheaper?
    Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    o3-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 8.2K for Gemma 2 9B.
  • Is Gemma 2 9B or o3-mini better for coding?
    Both Gemma 2 9B and o3-mini are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.
  • Are either of these models open source?
    Gemma 2 9B ships open weights (Gemma License). o3-mini is API-only.
  • When were Gemma 2 9B and o3-mini released?
    Gemma 2 9B was released by Google on 2024-06-27. o3-mini was released by OpenAI on 2025-01-31.
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