Is Gemma 3 27B a good deal?
Whether anything in this catalogue beats Gemma 3 27B on both quality and price, and what you give up if it does. A computation on the current catalogue, not an opinion.
11 undominated of 143 · Oct 13, 2026
As of Oct 13, 2026, gpt-oss-120b scores higher and costs less than Gemma 3 27B for Balanced on LMArena, but it is not a drop-in. You would give up: max output, image.
Inspect model evidence Compare differences & requirements
gpt-oss-120b scores 7.7 points higher and costs 40% less, but you would give up: max output, image.
LMArena Elo · higher is better
Scale starts at 1040 Elo
1357.7
Effective $/M · Balanced · lower is better
$0.100/M
LMArena Elo · higher is better
Scale starts at 1040 Elo
1365.4
Effective $/M · Balanced · lower is better
$0.060/M
Gemma 3 27B takes text, image, returns up to 117,964 tokens from a 131,072-token context, and is listed by 5 sellers.
Compared against 143 rated, priced models on this lens: nothing dominates it outright, 1 more dominates it but gives something up. Gemma 3 27B scores 1357.7 at $0.100 per million tokens for this mix.
Higher score, lower price, named losses
Not a drop-in. The loss is why these are not a recommendation.
| Model | LMArena | Effective $/M | You give up |
|---|---|---|---|
| gpt-oss-120b | 1365.4 | $0.060/M | max output, image |
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