GPT-4.1 Mini vs GPT-4o Mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Verdict

GPT-4o Mini is significantly cheaper at $0.15/$0.60 per million tokens vs $0.40/$1.60. GPT-4.1 Mini is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1230 vs 1200. GPT-4.1 Mini ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1240 vs 1220. GPT-4.1 Mini offers a larger 1048K context window vs 128K.

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureGPT-4.1 MiniGPT-4o Mini
ProviderOpenAIOpenAI
Input Price / 1M tokens$0.400$0.150
Output Price / 1M tokens$1.60$0.600
Context Window1.047576M128K
Max Output Tokens32,76816,384
Arena ELO1,2401,220
Coding ELO1,2301,200
TTFT (ms)190180
Tokens/sec115120
MultimodalYesYes
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionYesYes
When to Use GPT-4.1 Mini

Choose GPT-4.1 Mini when you need: 1m token context window at low cost, great balance of speed and quality, strong coding for a mini model, affordable for high-volume use. It excels at chatbots, long-context, cost-sensitive tasks. Its 1048K context window is larger, making it better for long-document processing.

Strengths:

  • 1M token context window at low cost
  • Great balance of speed and quality
  • Strong coding for a mini model
  • Affordable for high-volume use

Best for:

chatbotslong-contextcost-sensitive
When to Use GPT-4o Mini

Choose GPT-4o Mini when you need: extremely affordable pricing, fast response times, strong for its price tier, good multimodal support. It excels at chatbots, lightweight-tasks, cost-sensitive tasks. It is also the more cost-effective option between the two.

Strengths:

  • Extremely affordable pricing
  • Fast response times
  • Strong for its price tier
  • Good multimodal support

Best for:

chatbotslightweight-taskscost-sensitive

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Comparisons