Which model is better: OpenAI GPT-4o or o3-mini?

o3-mini is 56.0% cheaper for input tokens ($1.10 vs. $2.50 per 1M tokens) and $4.40 vs. $10.00 for output tokens (2.3x cost difference). In terms of operational performance, OpenAI GPT-4o delivers faster response latency with 280ms TTFT (920ms faster than o3-mini). o3-mini leads coding benchmarks at 49.3% SWE-bench vs. 38.8% for OpenAI GPT-4o.
Verified daily via automated API latency tests and official documentation.

Verified Performance & Unit Economics Delta

Daily synchronized metrics from synthetic latency endpoints and benchmark evaluations.

Metric / Dimension OpenAI GPT-4o o3-mini Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens $2.50 $1.10 o3-mini is 2.3x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens $10.00 $4.40 o3-mini (127.3% lower)
Avg TTFT Response Latency 280ms 1200ms OpenAI GPT-4o (+920ms faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding) 38.8% 49.3% o3-mini (+10.5% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR) 45.5 / 100 77 / 100 o3-mini (+31.5 pts)

Interactive Monthly Token Economics & ROI Forecaster

Model your expected production workload across prompt (input) and completion (output) tokens.

Live Calculation Engine
10.0M Tokens
100K 50M 250M 500M+
2.5M Tokens
100K 10M 50M 100M+

Estimated Monthly Spend

OpenAI GPT-4o $5.45

$2.5/1M in · $10/1M out

o3-mini $67.50

$1.1/1M in · $4.4/1M out

Projected Monthly Cost Reduction
$62.05 / mo
(91.9% lower cost)
A

When to Choose OpenAI GPT-4o

Choose OpenAI GPT-4o when you need General multimodal assistant applications, consumer chat interfaces, and enterprise knowledge workers. and have an infrastructure budget aligned with $2.50/1M tokens.

B

When to Choose o3-mini

Choose o3-mini when you need Cost-efficient STEM reasoning, high-throughput math problem-solving, and structured code synthesis. and prioritize OpenAI ecosystem integration at $1.10/1M tokens.

Related Questions & Decision Factors

Which is cheaper: OpenAI GPT-4o or o3-mini?

o3-mini is cheaper at $1.10/1M input tokens compared to $2.50/1M for OpenAI GPT-4o.

Which model has lower latency: OpenAI GPT-4o or o3-mini?

OpenAI GPT-4o delivers faster response times with an average TTFT of 280ms vs 1200ms for o3-mini.

When should you choose OpenAI GPT-4o?

Choose OpenAI GPT-4o when you need General multimodal assistant applications, consumer chat interfaces, and enterprise knowledge workers. and have an infrastructure budget aligned with $2.50/1M tokens.

When should you choose o3-mini?

Choose o3-mini when you need Cost-efficient STEM reasoning, high-throughput math problem-solving, and structured code synthesis. and prioritize OpenAI ecosystem integration at $1.10/1M tokens.

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