GPT-4.1 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 $2.00/$8.00. GPT-4.1 is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1320 vs 1150. GPT-4.1 Nano is faster at 150 tokens/sec vs 88 tokens/sec. GPT-4.1 ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1290 vs 1180.

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureGPT-4.1GPT-4.1 Nano
ProviderOpenAIOpenAI
Input Price / 1M tokens$2.00$0.100
Output Price / 1M tokens$8.00$0.400
Context Window1.047576M1.047576M
Max Output Tokens32,76832,768
Arena ELO1,2901,180
Coding ELO1,3201,150
TTFT (ms)260130
Tokens/sec88150
MultimodalYesYes
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionYesYes
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:

  • 1M token context window
  • Excellent coding performance
  • Strong instruction following
  • Competitive pricing for its capability

Best for:

codinglong-contextagentsgeneral-purpose
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.

Strengths:

  • Ultra-low pricing
  • 1M context window
  • Very fast inference
  • Ideal for simple tasks at scale

Best for:

chatbotsclassificationcost-sensitivehigh-volume

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Comparisons