ModelRefs / Text Embedding 3 Large vs o3
Text Embedding 3 Large vs o3
Text Embedding 3 Large vs o3: side-by-side benchmarks, pricing, context windows, coding ability and deployment. Pick the right model for your stack.
Overview
o3: o3 is OpenAI's April 2025 reasoning model, applying deliberate chain-of-thought computation at inference time to mathematics, science and competitive programming tasks, and the release that brought OpenAI's scalable test-time compute approach to its production API. OpenAI has since deprecated it, scheduling the o3-2025-04-16 snapshot to shut down on 11 December 2026 with gpt-5.6-sol as the replacement.
Text Embedding 3 Large: Text Embedding 3 Large is OpenAI's larger third-generation embedding model, returning 3,072-dimension vectors from inputs of up to 8,192 tokens. Its dimensions parameter shortens the vector at creation time without, as OpenAI puts it, the embedding losing its concept-representing properties, which lets a retrieval system trade index size against accuracy without changing models. Shortening at creation is preferred to truncating afterwards, which requires re-normalising the vector.
Context window: o3 accepts up to 200,000 tokens, Text Embedding 3 Large up to 8,191. Confirm the limit for your specific deployment channel before relying on it.
o3 vs Text Embedding 3 Large at a glance
| Attribute | o3 | Text Embedding 3 Large |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | OpenAI |
| Released | 2025-04-16 | 2024-01-25 |
| Context window | 200,000 tokens | 8,191 tokens |
| Input price | $10/M tokens | $0.13/M tokens |
| Output price | $40/M tokens | Free / self-hosted |
| Licence | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Self-hostable | No, hosted only | No, hosted only |
| Modalities | text, vision | text, Embedding |
Where they differ most
- Cost Efficiency: o3 13%, Text Embedding 3 Large 99%. Text Embedding 3 Large leads on this dimension.
Capability scores are ModelRefs' own derived signals, not vendor claims or benchmark results. Validate against your own workload before relying on them.
Continue your research
Use these connected ModelRefs sections to compare alternatives, inspect implementation paths, and review the evidence and governance boundaries relevant to Text Embedding 3 Large vs o3.
Frequently asked questions
Which is better, Text Embedding 3 Large or o3?
Text Embedding 3 Large and o3 target different workloads — see the benchmark and pricing tables for a side-by-side answer.
Is Text Embedding 3 Large cheaper than o3?
Compare $0.00013 vs $0.0100 on this page.