Sakana: Fugu Max vs OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct: Live Promos, Pricing, Hidden Fees & Latency
Verified 2026 FinOps benchmark comparing Sakana: Fugu Max (sakana/fugu-max) vs OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct (openai/gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct). Simulate cache read multipliers, context cliffs, MAU bills, and P90 latency.
Sakana: Fugu Max (sakana/fugu-max) 2026 Q4 Developer Promotion & Volume Credits
Official 2026 Q4 promotion for Sakana: Fugu Max: Activate ephemeral prefix caching to slash input costs by 50% (down to $1/1M) or route via asynchronous Batch API for 50% off standard token rates.
OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct (openai/gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct) Startup Credits & Batch API 50% Off Promo
OpenAI GPT-6.1 Sol ($2/$10 base rate) qualifies for immediate 75% automatic prefix caching ($0.50/1M), 50% off 24-hour Batch API completions ($1/$5), and up to $150,000 in OpenAI/Azure Foundry credits via Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub (no VC funding required for initial tiers).
In Etuki October 2026 FinOps telemetry comparing Sakana: Fugu Max (API ID: sakana/fugu-max) vs OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct (API ID: openai/gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct), OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct offers lower standard input pricing at $1.5/1M tokens ($2/1M output), while OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct leads in cached prefix economics at $0.75/1M tokens (50% discount). Sakana: Fugu Max achieves a 0ms faster P90 time-to-first-token latency (280ms vs 280ms).
Auto-discovered via live global telemetry registry.
Auto-discovered via live global telemetry registry.
| Specification / FinOps Dimension | Sakana: Fugu Max | OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct | Verified Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official Vendor API ID | sakana/fugu-max | openai/gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct | Pinned Snapshot IDs |
| Standard Input / Output (per 1M) | $2 / $6 | $1.5 / $2 | OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct |
| Cache Read Price (per 1M) | $1/1M (50% Off) | $0.75/1M (50% Off) | OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct |
| Context Window / Max Output | 977K In / 125K Out | 4K In / 4K Out | Sakana: Fugu Max |
| P90 First-Token / Edge Latency | 280ms | 280ms | Sakana: Fugu Max (-0ms) |
Fugu Max is the cost-performance model in Sakana AI's Fugu family. Rather than a single monolithic model, Fugu is a learned multi-agent orchestration system: a language model train
This model is a variant of GPT-3.5 Turbo tuned for instructional prompts and omitting chat-related optimizations. Training data: up to Sep 2021.
Real-Time Stack Cost & Hidden-Fee Simulator (MAU / Token / Egress / GMV)
Calibrated with Reddit r/FinOps & r/devops telemetry: Includes Context Caching, Bandwidth Egress, and MoR Tax
🛰️Switch from Sakana: Fugu Max to OpenAI: GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct
This model is a variant of GPT-3.5 Turbo tuned for instructional prompts and omitting chat-related optimizations. Training data: up to Sep 2021. Verified P90 latency of 280ms.