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o3-mini vs Phi-4: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Verdict

Phi-4 is significantly cheaper at $0.07/$0.14 per million tokens vs $1.10/$4.40. o3-mini is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1340 vs 1130. Phi-4 is faster at 160 tokens/sec vs 55 tokens/sec. o3-mini ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1310 vs 1150. o3-mini offers a larger 200K context window vs 16K.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Featureo3-miniPhi-4
ProviderOpenAIMicrosoft
Input Price / 1M tokens$1.10$0.070
Output Price / 1M tokens$4.40$0.140
Context Window200K16.384K
Max Output Tokens100,0004,096
Arena ELO1,3101,150
Coding ELO1,3401,130
TTFT (ms)1,500100
Tokens/sec55160
MultimodalNoNo
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesNo
VisionNoNo
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. Its 200K context window is larger, making it better for long-document processing.

Strengths:

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

Best for:

reasoningmathcodingscience
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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