OpenAI GPT Models - Finally, One That Doesn't Suck

GPT-5 is the first release that doesn't feel like they just slapped a new version number on the same broken model. It's faster, costs way less, and doesn't randomly hallucinate nonsense when you need it to work. Still not perfect, but the bullshit factor dropped significantly.

Model Variants That Don't Make You Want to Scream

They finally have models that make sense instead of the confusing mess GPT-4 was. Nano if you're broke, mini for most stuff, standard when you actually need it to think. High costs the same but doesn't shit the bed on math problems. Pro costs stupid money but at least it's genuinely smarter.

First time I can run real apps on this without constantly apologizing to users when it breaks.

The Multimodal Stuff Actually Works (Mostly)

Images: Upload screenshots and it'll tell you what's broken. I threw a complex React error at it and it spotted the missing dependency immediately. Way better than GPT-4o at understanding visual content.

Audio: The realtime voice models work but cost $32 per million audio tokens, which adds up fast. Great for demos, expensive for production.

Code: This is where GPT-5 shines. It can actually fix real GitHub issues instead of generating plausible-looking garbage. I've had it debug Kubernetes networking issues that took me hours to figure out myself. Still not perfect but way better than before.

Production Reality

The API is what you want for actual apps. ChatGPT web interface is fine for testing stuff but completely useless for building anything real.

Rate limits will fuck you. OpenAI runs like 3 different limits at once - per minute, per day, some token thing that makes no sense. You'll hit them, get 429 errors, and have to explain to your boss why the demo stopped working. Happened to me last month during a client presentation. Built exponential backoff after that embarrassment.

The API goes down at the worst possible times despite their 99.9% uptime marketing. Always have a backup plan because you'll get 502 errors when your app is trending on ProductHunt. Status page tells you it's broken but that doesn't help when users are already complaining.

Azure OpenAI costs more but doesn't randomly die. Worth it if you can't afford to look like an idiot.

Market Reality

OpenAI still dominates because their API doesn't randomly change and the docs actually explain things. Microsoft obviously uses it for everything, and most big companies are either using it or building prototypes.

When they retired GPT-4, they just upgraded everyone to GPT-4o without breaking anything. Rare to see an API company not fuck up a major version change.

If you're starting out, just use their Python SDK and read the docs. They're surprisingly not terrible. Don't get fancy until you understand what you're paying for because the pricing tiers will make or break your budget.

Been running GPT models in production for over a year. Here's what doesn't make me want to switch careers to farming.

Document stuff: Throw PDFs at it and it pulls out the important parts. Tried it on this massive compliance document - like 200 pages of legal bullshit. It worked but my AWS bill wasn't happy. Think it was like 20 bucks? Maybe more? Either way, cheaper than paying a paralegal to read it.

Code review: Upload screenshots of errors and it actually tells you what's broken. Had this React hydration error that was driving me insane for hours. GPT-5 looked at the screenshot and immediately said "server/client state mismatch in your component." Still took me forever to fix because my state management was fucked, but at least I knew what was wrong.

Bug hunting: It's gotten scary good at debugging real issues. Docker networking problems, shitty SQL queries, race conditions. Works great when you can explain the problem like a human, completely useless when you just dump stack traces and hope for magic.

OpenAI's dashboard helps track API usage and costs in real-time

What Works and What Doesn't

Customer support bots: The cost savings are real but you need fallback systems for when it goes off the rails. Built one that handles basic stuff fine but still escalates the complicated shit to humans. Don't expect it to magically understand your business overnight.

Content writing: GPT-5 mini handles blog posts and marketing copy. It's not amazing but it's good enough to edit into something useful. Don't expect it to nail your brand voice without a lot of prompt tweaking.

Research: GPT-5 Pro is impressive for general topics but it makes up citations like crazy. Always fact-check everything. Great for brainstorming and getting started, terrible when you need actual accuracy.

How to Not Go Broke

Start with GPT-5 mini for everything. Don't get fancy until you know what you're doing. Most stuff doesn't need the expensive models anyway.

Cache your prompts if you're hitting the same system prompt over and over. Cached tokens cost way less. Saved me like 200 bucks a month on a high-volume app once I figured this out.

Set up billing alerts right fucking now. Saw someone get hit with a massive bill - I think it was like 1800 bucks or maybe 2200? Either way, enough to ruin their month. They had some retry loop that kept hitting GPT-4o instead of the cheap model.

Rate limiting errors (HTTP 429) will kill your app during usage spikes

Response Time Reality Check

GPT-5 nano: Usually pretty fast, maybe 2-3 seconds. Can get slow during peak hours when everyone's hitting the API.

GPT-5 mini/standard: Plan for 5-10 seconds on average. Sometimes faster, sometimes 30+ seconds when something's fucked on their end. Build loading states that don't make users think your app is broken.

GPT-5 pro: Takes forever. Like 30-60 seconds for complex stuff. Learned this during a demo when I waited awkwardly for a minute while the client stared at a spinning wheel.

Streaming helps but users still wait for the first token. API occasionally just hangs because why not. Always set timeouts.

Azure OpenAI costs more but doesn't randomly die on you. Worth it if you can't afford to look incompetent.

GPT-5 processes text, images, and audio in a single unified system

Security Stuff

Your data goes to OpenAI. They claim SOC 2 compliance and say they don't train on your data, but you're still trusting a third party with your shit. Don't send passwords, API keys, personal info, or anything that would ruin your day if it leaked.

Content filtering works most of the time. Models refuse obvious bad requests but you can often work around filters if you're determined. Build your own filtering if you actually care about safety.

API keys have no scoping. You can monitor usage but can't restrict keys to specific models or limits. Treat them like database passwords. Someone on my team accidentally used a dev key for load testing once. Expensive lesson.

Version Hell

Good news: OpenAI doesn't usually break backward compatibility. When they upgraded GPT-4 to GPT-4o, everything just worked better.

Bad news: You can't control when models change. Pin to specific versions if you need consistency. Otherwise your app's behavior will drift as models update. Had a prompt that worked perfectly for weeks suddenly start returning different JSON after an update. No warning, no changelog, just broken production.

Bookmark the status page for when shit breaks, set up billing alerts before you go broke, and consider Azure if you need reliability.

Works better than anything else, costs less than I expected, and doesn't randomly break every day. Good enough.