GPT-4 1 vs GPT-4 1.5-mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Pricing verified Apr 20, 2026By LLMversusUpdated June 14, 2026View methodology

⚡ Quick Answer

GPT-4.1 Mini is significantly cheaper at $0.40/$1.60 per million tokens vs $2.00/$8.00. GPT-4.1 is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1320 vs 1230. GPT-4.1 Mini is faster at 115 tokens/sec vs 88 tokens/sec. GPT-4.1 ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1290 vs 1240.

Updated: April 20, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureGPT-4 1GPT-4 1.5-mini
ProviderOpenAIOpenAI
Input Price / 1M tokens$2.00$0.400
Output Price / 1M tokens$8.00$1.60
Context Window
8.192K
128K
Max Output Tokens
2,048
4,096
Arena ELO
1,200
1,180
Coding ELO
1,210
1,200
TTFT (ms)
160
140
Tokens/sec
85
120
MultimodalNoNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionNoNo
When to Use GPT-4 1

Choose GPT-4.1 when you need: 1m token context window, excellent coding performance, strong instruction following, competitive pricing for its capability. It excels at coding, long-context, agents, general-purpose tasks.

Strengths:

  • Good quality
  • Affordable
  • Reliable

Best for:

general-purposecoding
When to Use GPT-4 1.5-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. It is also the more cost-effective option between the two.

Strengths:

  • Affordable
  • Fast
  • Large context

Best for:

cost-effectivegeneral-purpose

Frequently Asked Questions

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