My vibe question checking suggests otherwise. Even o3-mini-high is not as good as r1, even though it's faster than r1. Considering o3-mini is more expensive per token. It's not clear o3-mini-high is cheaper than r1 either even r1 probably consumes more token per answer.

well in my anecdotal tests, o3 mini (free) performed better than r1

I did math tests. Probably you did coding.

Also in my coding testing o3 mini (free) is better than r1.