Provider Dossier · Frontier Lab
OpenAI
Frontier model quality and the de-facto API standard the whole ecosystem mimics.
The Datum Index verdict
Benchmark of the field
Ranked No. 1 of 20 in our composite reputation index, and currently holding steady.
≈ 4.6 / 5 aggregate · 1,420 reviewer notes
Composite index · reviewed 10 July 2026
Findings
- OpenAI holds a Datum Index composite reputation of 91 / 100 (≈ 4.6 / 5), ranked No. 1 of 20.
- It is a frontier lab based in San Francisco, USA, founded 2015, offering proprietary model access.
- Its flagship offering is GPT-4o / o-series, exposed through an OpenAI-compatible API.
- Indicative pricing is $2.50 / 1M tokens in / $10.00 / 1M tokens out (medium confidence).
- Reference throughput is ~90 tok/s with ~480 ms time-to-first-token; stated uptime is 99.8%.
OpenAI enters our index at No. 1, a placement that reads as benchmark of the field. The composite rests on 1,420 reviewer notes gathered across the public record, and it is best understood not as a score out of ten but as a standing among peers. The trend line is flat: reviewer sentiment has held steady over recent quarters.
Read what follows as an editorial assessment rather than a datasheet. Where a figure below carries a seed mark, treat it as an illustration of the shape of the offering, not a quotable fact.
In its favour
Frontier model quality and the de-facto API standard the whole ecosystem mimics.
On the numbers that flatter it: proprietary access, 3 named compliance attestations, and a reference throughput of ~90 tokens per second.
Points of concern
Premium pricing and no access to open-weight models.
The caveat a buyer should price in before committing production traffic. As with every entry, we weigh it against the field rather than against perfection.
Incident & Uptime Note
The record of being there
OpenAI states an availability of 99.8%. Held over a full year, that headline implies on the order of 17.5 hours of cumulative unavailability — a useful sense of scale, though real incidents cluster rather than spread evenly, and a single bad afternoon can outweigh a quiet quarter.
Datum Index does not operate first-party probes. Uptime here is drawn from the provider's own status disclosures and the public incident record; it is a reputation input, not an SLA. Where a provider publishes a status page, we recommend watching it directly before committing critical traffic.
Key Facts
The record, in brief
| Category | Frontier Lab |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | San Francisco, USA |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Model access | Proprietary |
| Flagship / reference | GPT-4o / o-series |
| OpenAI-compatible API | Yes |
| Indicative price (in / out) | $2.50 / 1M tokens / $10.00 / 1M tokens medium |
| Reference throughput | ~90 tok/s |
| Reference TTFT | ~480 ms |
| Stated uptime | 99.8% |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II · GDPR · CCPA |
| Composite reputation | 91 / 100 · ≈ 4.6 / 5 · 1,420 notes |
Reviewer Notes
What the field says
The 1,420 notes behind OpenAI's standing are drawn from the accumulated public verdict of practitioners — the recurring praises and the recurring gripes — rather than from any single survey. Two themes dominate. Admirers return to one point above all: Frontier model quality and the de-facto API standard the whole ecosystem mimics. Detractors return to another: Premium pricing and no access to open-weight models.
We publish neither individual reviews nor reviewer identities; the composite is an editorial synthesis, and the reviewer-note count is an order-of-magnitude indication of how much public signal informs it.
Related dossiers · see also
Peer entries in the same or adjacent category, for comparison against OpenAI's standing.