Compare/Gemma 3 12B Instruct vs o3

Gemma 3 12B Instructvso3

Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.

Google

Gemma 3 12B Instruct

Input
$0/M
Output
$0/M
Speed
TTFT
OpenAI

o3

Input
$2/M
Output
$8/M
Speed
125 tok/s
TTFT
6.65s

Winner by Category

Cheaper
Gemma 3 12B Instruct
Faster (tok/s)
o3
Lower Latency
Gemma 3 12B Instruct
Benchmarks (1-11)
o3

Pricing Comparison

MetricGemma 3 12B Instructo3
Input ($/M tokens)$0$2
Output ($/M tokens)$0$8
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
Gemma 3 12B Instruct$0.00
o3$2.80

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Gemma 3 12B Instruct
o3
125 tok/s
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Gemma 3 12B Instruct
o3
6.65s

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
5.530.4
Coding Index
5.8
Math Index
18.388.3
GPQA Diamond
34.9%82.7%
MMLU-Pro
59.5%85.3%
LiveCodeBench
13.7%80.8%
AIME 2025
18.3%88.3%
MATH-500
85.3%99.2%
Humanity's Last Exam
4.8%20.0%
SciCode
17.4%41.0%
IFBench
36.7%71.4%
TerminalBench
0.8%37.1%
Gemma 3 12B Instruct1 wins
11 winso3

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B Instruct or o3?

Gemma 3 12B Instruct is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $0.00/M tokens vs $3.50/M for o3.

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

o3 wins 11 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 1 for Gemma 3 12B Instruct. See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

o3 generates tokens faster at 125 tok/s vs 0 tok/s. Gemma 3 12B Instruct also has lower time-to-first-token (0.00s vs 6.65s).

When should I use Gemma 3 12B Instruct vs o3?

Choose based on your priorities: Gemma 3 12B Instruct for lower cost, o3 for stronger benchmark performance, and o3 for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.