GPT-4o vs GPT-4o Mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Verdict

GPT-4o Mini is significantly cheaper at $0.15/$0.60 per million tokens vs $2.50/$10.00. GPT-4o is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1265 vs 1200. GPT-4o ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1260 vs 1220.

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureGPT-4oGPT-4o Mini
ProviderOpenAIOpenAI
Input Price / 1M tokens$2.50$0.150
Output Price / 1M tokens$10.00$0.600
Context Window128K128K
Max Output Tokens16,38416,384
Arena ELO1,2601,220
Coding ELO1,2651,200
TTFT (ms)230180
Tokens/sec95120
MultimodalYesYes
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionYesYes
When to Use GPT-4o

Choose GPT-4o when you need: fast response times, strong multimodal capabilities, code execution support. It excels at general-purpose, multimodal, function-calling tasks.

Strengths:

  • Fast response times
  • Strong multimodal capabilities
  • Code execution support

Best for:

general-purposemultimodalfunction-calling
When to Use GPT-4o Mini

Choose GPT-4o Mini when you need: extremely affordable pricing, fast response times, strong for its price tier, good multimodal support. It excels at chatbots, lightweight-tasks, cost-sensitive tasks. It is also the more cost-effective option between the two.

Strengths:

  • Extremely affordable pricing
  • Fast response times
  • Strong for its price tier
  • Good multimodal support

Best for:

chatbotslightweight-taskscost-sensitive

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Comparisons