💰 Unit Cost Winner Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite $0.075/1M in · $0.30/1M out
⚡ Latency & Speed Winner Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite 78ms TTFT · 265 tok/s
💻 Coding (SWE) Winner Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite 55.4% SWE-bench · 91% HumanEval
🧠 STEM Reasoning Winner Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite 68.4% GPQA · 90.2% MATH-500

Which model is better: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or GPT-4o Mini?

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 50.0% cheaper for input tokens ($0.07 vs. $0.15 per 1M tokens) and $0.30 vs. $0.60 for output tokens (2.0x cost advantage). In terms of operational performance, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite delivers lower response latency at 78ms TTFT (142ms faster than GPT-4o Mini) with 265 vs. 140 tok/s throughput. Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite leads coding evaluations at 55.4% SWE-bench Verified vs. 41.0% for GPT-4o Mini and 68.4% vs. 40.2% on GPQA Diamond.
Verified daily via automated API latency tests and official documentation.

Verified Performance & Unit Economics Delta (12 Dimensions)

Daily synchronized metrics across token pricing, prompt cache economics, latency, throughput, and 5 capability benchmarks.

Metric / Dimension Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite GPT-4o Mini Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens $0.07 $0.15 Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 2.0x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens $0.30 $0.60 Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (50.0% lower)
Prompt Cache Read / 1M $0.015 $0.075 Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 5.0x cheaper
Prompt Cache Write / 1M $0.07 $0.15 Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 2.0x cheaper
Context Window (Max Output) 1,049k (33k out) 131k (16k out) Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (8.0x larger context)
Avg TTFT Response Latency 78ms 220ms Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (142ms faster)
Generation Speed (Throughput) 265 tok/s 140 tok/s Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (+125 tok/s faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding) 55.4% 41% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (+14.4% lead)
GPQA Diamond (PhD STEM) 68.4% 40.2% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (+28.2% lead)
MMLU-Pro (Multi-Discipline) 80.1% 68% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (+12.1% lead)
MATH-500 (Quantitative Logic) 90.2% 70.2% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (+20.0% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR) 81.5 / 100 67.2 / 100 Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (+14.3 pts)

Interactive Monthly Token Economics & ROI Forecaster

Model production workloads across prompt, completion, and cached context tokens, or switch models on the fly.

25.0M Tokens
500K 50M 250M 500M+
5.0M Tokens
100K 25M 75M 150M+
50% Cached
0% (Uncached) 25% 50% (Typical Agent) 95% Max

Estimated Monthly Spend

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite $2.63

$0.07/1M in · $0.30/1M out

Prompt Cache: $0.015/1M read · $0.07/1M write

GPT-4o Mini $5.81

$0.15/1M in · $0.60/1M out

Prompt Cache: $0.075/1M read · $0.15/1M write

Projected Monthly Cost Reduction
$3.19 / mo
(54.8% lower cost with Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite)
Open Full Matchup Analysis →
A

When to Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite

Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (Google) for high-frequency data pipelines, real-time routing, large-scale document tagging, and ultra-low-cost conversational assistants — offering a 1,048k context window, 78ms TTFT, and $0.07/1M input pricing ($0.015/1M cached reads).

B

When to Choose GPT-4o Mini

Choose GPT-4o Mini (OpenAI) for high-volume classification, lightweight RAG chatbots, and structured JSON extraction — offering a 131k context window, 220ms TTFT, and $0.15/1M input pricing ($0.075/1M cached reads).

Related Questions & Decision Factors

Which is cheaper: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or GPT-4o Mini?

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $0.075/1M input tokens ($0.30/1M output) compared to $0.15/1M input ($0.60/1M output) for GPT-4o Mini.

Which model has lower TTFT latency and higher tok/s throughput: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or GPT-4o Mini?

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite delivers faster first-token latency at 78ms TTFT (265 tok/s throughput) compared to 220ms TTFT (140 tok/s) for GPT-4o Mini.

How do Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and GPT-4o Mini compare on SWE-bench coding and GPQA Diamond reasoning?

On SWE-bench Verified software engineering, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite scores 55.4% versus 41% for GPT-4o Mini. On GPQA Diamond graduate-level STEM reasoning, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite scores 68.4% versus 40.2% for GPT-4o Mini (and 90.2% vs 70.2% on MATH-500).

When should you choose Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite?

Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (Google) for high-frequency data pipelines, real-time routing, large-scale document tagging, and ultra-low-cost conversational assistants — offering a 1,048k context window, 78ms TTFT, and $0.07/1M input pricing ($0.015/1M cached reads).

When should you choose GPT-4o Mini?

Choose GPT-4o Mini (OpenAI) for high-volume classification, lightweight RAG chatbots, and structured JSON extraction — offering a 131k context window, 220ms TTFT, and $0.15/1M input pricing ($0.075/1M cached reads).

Explore High-Priority Related Model Matchups