GPT-4 TurbovsGPT-o4 Mini
OpenAI vs OpenAI — Side-by-side model comparison
Head-to-Head Comparison
| Metric | GPT-4 Turbo | GPT-o4 Mini |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | ||
| Arena Rank | #5 | #6 |
| Context Window | 128K | 200K |
| Input Pricing | $10.00/1M tokens | $1.10/1M tokens |
| Output Pricing | $30.00/1M tokens | $4.40/1M tokens |
| Parameters | Undisclosed | Undisclosed |
| Open Source | No | No |
| Best For | Complex tasks, coding, analysis, vision | Affordable reasoning, coding, STEM tasks |
| Release Date | Apr 9, 2024 | Apr 16, 2025 |
GPT-4 Turbo
GPT-4 Turbo is OpenAI's optimized version of GPT-4, offering the same intelligence at a fraction of the cost and with a significantly larger 128K context window. It includes a knowledge cutoff of April 2024 and supports both text and vision inputs. GPT-4 Turbo delivers faster responses than the original GPT-4 while maintaining the same level of reasoning capability, making it ideal for production applications that need high-quality outputs without the latency or cost of the base GPT-4 model.
View OpenAI profile →GPT-o4 Mini
GPT-o4 Mini is OpenAI's most cost-efficient reasoning model, bringing the power of deliberative chain-of-thought reasoning to budget-conscious applications. It uses the same 'thinking tokens' approach as larger o-series models but at a fraction of the cost ($1.10 per million input tokens). The model excels at STEM tasks, coding challenges, and logical reasoning problems where standard language models struggle. With a 200K context window, it can process long technical documents while applying careful step-by-step analysis. O4 Mini represents OpenAI's effort to democratize advanced reasoning capabilities, making them accessible for educational platforms, coding tools, and analytical applications that previously couldn't justify the cost of full reasoning models.
View OpenAI profile →Key Differences: GPT-4 Turbo vs GPT-o4 Mini
GPT-4 Turbo ranks higher in arena benchmarks (#5) indicating stronger overall performance.
GPT-o4 Mini is 7.3x cheaper on average, making it the better choice for high-volume applications.
GPT-o4 Mini supports a larger context window (200K), allowing it to process longer documents in a single request.
When to use GPT-4 Turbo
- +You need the highest quality output based on arena rankings
- +Quality matters more than cost
- +Your use case involves complex tasks, coding, analysis, vision
When to use GPT-o4 Mini
- +Budget is a concern and you need cost efficiency
- +You need to process long documents (200K context)
- +Your use case involves affordable reasoning, coding, stem tasks
Cost Analysis
At current pricing, GPT-o4 Mini is 7.3x more affordable than GPT-4 Turbo. For a typical enterprise workload processing 100M tokens per month:
GPT-4 Turbo monthly cost
$2,000
100M tokens/mo (50/50 in/out)
GPT-o4 Mini monthly cost
$275
100M tokens/mo (50/50 in/out)
The Verdict
GPT-o4 Mini wins our head-to-head comparison with 3 out of 5 category wins. It's the stronger choice for affordable reasoning, coding, stem tasks, though GPT-4 Turbo holds an edge in complex tasks, coding, analysis, vision.
Last compared: March 2026 · Data sourced from public benchmarks and official pricing pages