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Claude Sonnet 4 vs GPT-4.1 Mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Verdict

GPT-4.1 Mini is significantly cheaper at $0.40/$1.60 per million tokens vs $3.00/$15.00. Claude Sonnet 4 is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1305 vs 1230. GPT-4.1 Mini is faster at 115 tokens/sec vs 78 tokens/sec. Claude Sonnet 4 ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1280 vs 1240. GPT-4.1 Mini offers a larger 1048K context window vs 200K.

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureClaude Sonnet 4GPT-4.1 Mini
ProviderAnthropicOpenAI
Input Price / 1M tokens$3.00$0.400
Output Price / 1M tokens$15.00$1.60
Context Window200K1.047576M
Max Output Tokens64,00032,768
Arena ELO1,2801,240
Coding ELO1,3051,230
TTFT (ms)320190
Tokens/sec78115
MultimodalYesYes
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionYesYes
When to Use Claude Sonnet 4

Choose Claude Sonnet 4 when you need: best-in-class coding performance, 200k context window, excellent instruction following. It excels at coding, analysis, long-context, agents tasks.

Strengths:

  • Best-in-class coding performance
  • 200K context window
  • Excellent instruction following

Best for:

codinganalysislong-contextagents
When to Use GPT-4.1 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. Its 1048K context window is larger, making it better for long-document processing.

Strengths:

  • 1M token context window at low cost
  • Great balance of speed and quality
  • Strong coding for a mini model
  • Affordable for high-volume use

Best for:

chatbotslong-contextcost-sensitive

Frequently Asked Questions

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