Claude Opus 4 vs GPT-4.1 Nano: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Verdict

GPT-4.1 Nano is significantly cheaper at $0.10/$0.40 per million tokens vs $15.00/$75.00. Claude Opus 4 is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1360 vs 1150. GPT-4.1 Nano is faster at 150 tokens/sec vs 50 tokens/sec. Claude Opus 4 ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1330 vs 1180. GPT-4.1 Nano offers a larger 1048K context window vs 200K.

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureClaude Opus 4GPT-4.1 Nano
ProviderAnthropicOpenAI
Input Price / 1M tokens$15.00$0.100
Output Price / 1M tokens$75.00$0.400
Context Window200K1.047576M
Max Output Tokens32,00032,768
Arena ELO1,3301,180
Coding ELO1,3601,150
TTFT (ms)500130
Tokens/sec50150
MultimodalYesYes
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionYesYes
When to Use Claude Opus 4

Choose Claude Opus 4 when you need: top-tier coding and reasoning, excellent agentic capabilities, strong instruction following, 200k context window. It excels at coding, analysis, agents, complex-reasoning tasks.

Strengths:

  • Top-tier coding and reasoning
  • Excellent agentic capabilities
  • Strong instruction following
  • 200K context window

Best for:

codinganalysisagentscomplex-reasoning
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

Frequently Asked Questions

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