Which ChatGPT Model Should You Use? A Guide for Every User

 

Which ChatGPT Model Should You Use? A Guide for Every User

ChatGPT’s official model selector offers a diverse range of engines—text-only and multimodal—geared toward different tasks, from gpt-3.5-turbo for casual chat to gpt-4o for full multimodal interactions, and powerful reasoning-focused o-series models for deep analysis  .

Everyday Chat and Light Tasks

gpt-3.5-turbo

Introduced on November 30, 2022, gpt-3.5-turbo is the fast, cost-effective text-only engine that powers the original free ChatGPT interface. It excels at quick Q&A, drafting, and light code assistance  .

gpt-4o-mini

Rolled out in July 2024, gpt-4o-mini is a lightweight multimodal variant of GPT-4o. It offers simple image and voice understanding on the free tier, with lower latency and compute requirements  .

Complex Text and Extended Context

gpt-4

Released on March 14, 2023, GPT-4 delivers stronger reasoning, coding comprehension, and professional-grade writing support. It’s available exclusively to ChatGPT Plus subscribers  .

gpt-4-turbo

Announced November 6, 2023, GPT-4 Turbo is a faster, cheaper variant of GPT-4 with a 128 K-token context window, ideal for summarizing long documents and generating complex content  .

TIME reported that GPT-4 Turbo cuts input token costs by 3× and output token costs by 2×, making it especially cost-effective for developers  .

However, some analyses (e.g., Proxet) note occasional stability and retrieval nuances under heavy workloads  .

Multimodal Interactions

gpt-4o (Omni)

Launched in May 2024, GPT-4o (“Omni”) is the flagship multimodal engine supporting text, image, audio, and video in real time. It’s the default on both free and Plus plans, offering seamless transitions between media types  .

gpt-4o-mini

As a companion to GPT-4o, gpt-4o-mini debuted in July 2024. This compact multimodal engine delivers everyday image and audio understanding at lower latency and cost  .

Cutting-Edge Performance

gpt-4.5 (Orion)

Released on February 27, 2025, GPT-4.5 (codenamed Orion) builds on GPT-4o with enhanced language understanding and efficiency. Access is granted to Plus and Pro subscribers via the model picker  .

Deep Reasoning and Tool Use

o3

Integrated in the ChatGPT stable release on April 16, 2025, o3 is the flagship reasoning model with full tool access—code execution, file analysis, and web browsing—making it ideal for advanced analytical workflows  .

o4-mini

Also introduced April 2025, o4-mini is a streamlined reasoning engine optimized for high-volume STEM queries and structured problem solving at a lower cost  .

o4-mini-high

A variant of o4-mini configured for “high reasoning effort,” o4-mini-high trades some speed for deeper analytical capability, perfect for complex research tasks  .

Final Thoughts

• Free users: Start with gpt-3.5-turbo for text-only needs and gpt-4o-mini for basic multimodal tasks.
• Plus/Pro subscribers: Leverage gpt-4, gpt-4-turbo, and gpt-4o for extended context and full multimodal capabilities.
• Reasoning-intensive applications: Choose o3 or o4-mini-high for deep analysis with tool integrations.

Note: As of April 30, 2025, OpenAI officially retired GPT-4 in ChatGPT, fully replacing it with GPT-4o  . By matching your use case to the right model, you’ll unlock the optimal balance of speed, cost, and capability.