Llama 3.1 8B vs o4-mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Pricing verified Apr 8, 2026

⚡ Quick Answer

Compare Llama 3.1 8B and o4-mini across pricing, benchmarks, and capabilities.

Updated: April 8, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureLlama 3.1 8Bo4-mini
ProviderMetaOpenAI
Input Price / 1M tokens$0.060$0.500
Output Price / 1M tokens$0.060$2.00
Context Window
128K
128K
Max Output Tokens
4,096
32,768
Arena ELO
1,120
1,260
Coding ELON/A1,270
TTFT (ms)
150
180
Tokens/sec
100
105
MultimodalNoNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionNoNo
When to Use Llama 3.1 8B

Llama 3.1 8B excels at cost-effective, fast-inference tasks.

Strengths:

  • Very cheap
  • Super fast
  • Good for lightweight tasks

Best for:

cost-effectivefast-inference
When to Use o4-mini

o4-mini excels at general-purpose, reasoning, coding tasks.

Strengths:

  • Affordable
  • Fast
  • Good reasoning

Best for:

general-purposereasoningcoding

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