GPT-5 Family Variants
GPT-5 Family Variants
GPT-5 Family Variants are designed so you can trade off performance vs. cost/latency without changing your prompt style too much. The main variants are as follows:
- gpt-5
- gpt-5-mini
- gpt-5-nano
gpt-5 (full):
Best quality and reasoning depth; ideal for hardest problems, complex coding, multi-tool “agentic” workflows. Higher latency and cost.
gpt-5-mini:
A faster, more cost-efficient GPT-5 tuned for well-defined tasks and precise prompts; great for production endpoints where you still want strong quality.
gpt-5-nano:
The ultra-fast, lowest-cost option for lightweight tasks, tight latency budgets, or very high request volumes.
| Variant | What it’s best at | Typical use cases | Latency / Cost (relative) | Why pick it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
gpt-5 (full) |
Highest reasoning depth and reliability across complex tasks | End-to-end coding & debugging, multi-tool agents, research, long-form drafting | Slowest / Highest | When quality and difficult reasoning matter most |
gpt-5-mini |
Strong quality with better speed & price than full GPT-5 | Production APIs, well-scoped prompts, high-throughput coding & data tasks | Faster / Cheaper than full | Balanced choice for most apps |
gpt-5-nano |
Good enough answers at very low latency and cost | Autosuggest, classification/routing, form filling, lightweight chat | Fastest / Lowest | When throughput and responsiveness dominate |
