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

Verdict

Phi-4 is significantly cheaper at $0.07/$0.14 per million tokens vs $2.50/$10.00. GPT-4o is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1265 vs 1130. Phi-4 is faster at 160 tokens/sec vs 95 tokens/sec. GPT-4o ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1260 vs 1150. GPT-4o offers a larger 128K context window vs 16K.

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureGPT-4oPhi-4
ProviderOpenAIMicrosoft
Input Price / 1M tokens$2.50$0.070
Output Price / 1M tokens$10.00$0.140
Context Window128K16.384K
Max Output Tokens16,3844,096
Arena ELO1,2601,150
Coding ELO1,2651,130
TTFT (ms)230100
Tokens/sec95160
MultimodalYesNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesNo
VisionYesNo
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. Its 128K context window is larger, making it better for long-document processing.

Strengths:

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

Best for:

general-purposemultimodalfunction-calling
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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