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GPT-4.1 Nano vs Grok 3 Mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Verdict

GPT-4.1 Nano is significantly cheaper at $0.10/$0.40 per million tokens vs $0.30/$0.50. Grok 3 Mini is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1200 vs 1150. GPT-4.1 Nano is faster at 150 tokens/sec vs 110 tokens/sec. Grok 3 Mini ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1220 vs 1180. GPT-4.1 Nano offers a larger 1048K context window vs 128K.

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureGPT-4.1 NanoGrok 3 Mini
ProviderOpenAIxAI
Input Price / 1M tokens$0.100$0.300
Output Price / 1M tokens$0.400$0.500
Context Window1.047576M128K
Max Output Tokens32,76816,384
Arena ELO1,1801,220
Coding ELO1,1501,200
TTFT (ms)130180
Tokens/sec150110
MultimodalYesNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionYesNo
When to Use GPT-4.1 Nano

Choose GPT-4.1 Nano when you need: ultra-low pricing, 1m context window, very fast inference, ideal for simple tasks at scale. It excels at chatbots, classification, cost-sensitive, high-volume tasks. It is also the more cost-effective option between the two. Its 1048K context window is larger, making it better for long-document processing.

Strengths:

  • Ultra-low pricing
  • 1M context window
  • Very fast inference
  • Ideal for simple tasks at scale

Best for:

chatbotsclassificationcost-sensitivehigh-volume
When to Use Grok 3 Mini

Choose Grok 3 Mini when you need: very affordable pricing, fast response times, good for simple tasks, reasoning capabilities at low cost. It excels at chatbots, cost-sensitive, lightweight-tasks tasks.

Strengths:

  • Very affordable pricing
  • Fast response times
  • Good for simple tasks
  • Reasoning capabilities at low cost

Best for:

chatbotscost-sensitivelightweight-tasks

Frequently Asked Questions

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