Skip to main content
OpenAI

text-embedding-3-small pricing, context window and limits

text-embedding-3-small costs $0.02 per million input tokens and $0 per million output tokens at OpenAI list price. It accepts up to 8,191 tokens of context and returns up to 1,536 tokens.

  • Model id text-embedding-3-small
  • Snapshot

What does text-embedding-3-small cost?​

List prices in US dollars per million tokens
Input$0.02
Output$0
Cached input (read)—
Cache write—

US dollars per million tokens. A dash means no price is published.

How much can text-embedding-3-small read and write?​

Token limits
Context window8,191
Max output1,536

What can text-embedding-3-small do?​

Capabilities
Vision (image input)No
Tool callingNo
Structured outputNo
ReasoningNo
Inputtext
Outputtext

What does a request to text-embedding-3-small cost?​

Cost of example requests at list price, in US dollars
A typical request: 1,000 tokens in, 500 outunder $0.0001
A long request: 10,000 tokens in, 1,000 out$0.0002
1,000 typical requests$0.02
1 million tokens in and 1 million out$0.02

Among 49 OpenAI models with a published price, text-embedding-3-small is the cheapest by input price. Its context window is the 47th largest of 48. List prices only; discounts, batch prices and prices above 200K tokens are not shown.

How do I call text-embedding-3-small through DVARA?​

Configure the openai provider in the DVARA LLM Gateway and send the model id text-embedding-3-small. DVARA, the AI gateway, applies your policies, audit and cost attribution to the call. See LLM cost attribution and budgets.

In DVARA, if you haven't set your own price for a model, its calls are costed at the price in the catalogue that ships with your DVARA version. A price you set in Flightdeck always wins. You can switch catalogue prices off. Then a model with no price you set gets no cost record: its calls count against no budget and appear in no report, and the gateway records the model as unpriced. Every cost record says which price it used.

What should I check before relying on this data?​

The weekly review marked this entry. A person saw each mark and kept the model listed.

  • Output is listed cheaper than input, which is unusual.
  • This provider bills prompt caching, but no cached-input price is listed.

Which other OpenAI models are there?​

All 53 OpenAI models · Search the full catalogue

Which models from other providers are similar to text-embedding-3-small?​

These are the closest in context window and input price, one per provider.

Snapshot 16 October 2026. DVARA reviews every price weekly before it is published. Get the whole catalogue as llm-models.json. Prices are list prices in US dollars per million tokens; check your provider contract before you budget.