o3-mini vs Phi-4: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

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

⚡ Quick Answer

Phi-4 is significantly cheaper at $0.07/$0.14 per million tokens vs $1.10/$4.40. o3-mini is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1340 vs 1130. Phi-4 is faster at 160 tokens/sec vs 55 tokens/sec. o3-mini ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1310 vs 1150. o3-mini offers a larger 200K context window vs 16K.

Updated: April 20, 2026 · ✓ Pricing verified

Side-by-Side Comparison

Featureo3-miniPhi-4
ProviderOpenAIMicrosoft
Input Price / 1M tokens$1.10$0.065
Output Price / 1M tokens$4.40$0.140
Context Window
128K
16.384K
Max Output Tokens
65,536
4,096
Arena ELO
1,280
1,150
Coding ELO
1,285
1,130
TTFT (ms)
350
100
Tokens/sec
25
160
MultimodalNoNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingNoNo
VisionNoNo
When to Use o3-mini

Choose o3-mini when you need: strong mathematical reasoning, good coding performance, affordable reasoning model, large output window. It excels at reasoning, math, coding, science tasks. Its 200K context window is larger, making it better for long-document processing.

Strengths:

  • Strong reasoning
  • Good math skills
  • Affordable reasoning

Best for:

reasoningmathgeneral-purpose
When to Use Phi-4

Choose Phi-4 when you need: ultra-low cost for a capable model, strong math for its size (14b params), very fast inference, can run on consumer hardware. It excels at cost-sensitive, edge-deployment, math, lightweight-tasks tasks. It is also the more cost-effective option between the two.

Strengths:

  • Ultra-low cost for a capable model
  • Strong math for its size (14B params)
  • Very fast inference
  • Can run on consumer hardware

Best for:

cost-sensitiveedge-deploymentmathlightweight-tasks

Frequently Asked Questions

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