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o3-mini vs o4-mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Verdict

o4-mini is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1380 vs 1340. o4-mini ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1350 vs 1310.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Featureo3-minio4-mini
ProviderOpenAIOpenAI
Input Price / 1M tokens$1.10$1.10
Output Price / 1M tokens$4.40$4.40
Context Window200K200K
Max Output Tokens100,000100,000
Arena ELO1,3101,350
Coding ELO1,3401,380
TTFT (ms)1,5001,200
Tokens/sec5560
MultimodalNoYes
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionNoYes
When to Use o3-mini

Choose o3-mini when you need: strong mathematical reasoning, good coding performance, affordable reasoning model, large output window. It excels at reasoning, math, coding, science tasks.

Strengths:

  • Strong mathematical reasoning
  • Good coding performance
  • Affordable reasoning model
  • Large output window

Best for:

reasoningmathcodingscience
When to Use o4-mini

Choose o4-mini when you need: excellent reasoning and math capabilities, strong coding performance, affordable for a reasoning model, large output window. It excels at reasoning, math, coding, science tasks.

Strengths:

  • Excellent reasoning and math capabilities
  • Strong coding performance
  • Affordable for a reasoning model
  • Large output window

Best for:

reasoningmathcodingscience

Frequently Asked Questions

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