GPT-4o vs O3 Mini
Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026
GPT-4o
OpenAIOpenAI's flagship multimodal model. Strong coding and reasoning at competitive pricing.
| Input | $2.50/M |
| Output | $10.00/M |
| Context | 128K tokens |
| Best For | General coding, multimodal tasks, chatbots |
| Benchmark | 75/100 |
O3 Mini
OpenAIOpenAI's reasoning model at lower cost. Strong at math, coding, and science tasks.
| Input | $1.10/M |
| Output | $4.40/M |
| Context | 200K tokens |
| Best For | Math, science, coding tasks requiring deep reasoning |
| Benchmark | 80/100 |
Benchmark Performance Comparison
Third-party benchmark scores — higher is better. Data sourced from SWE-bench, LiveCodeBench, HumanEval, and BigCodeBench.
| Benchmark | GPT-4o | O3 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall Score | 75 | 80 | o3-mini leads by 5pts |
| SWE-bench Verified | 70 | 76 | o3-mini leads by 6pts |
| LiveCodeBench | 78 | 85 | o3-mini leads by 7pts |
| HumanEval | 90 | 94 | o3-mini leads by 4pts |
| BigCodeBench | 62 | 65 | o3-mini leads by 3pts |
Cost Comparison by Scenario
Estimated cost per project with 30% cache hit rate. Actual costs may vary based on usage patterns.
| Scenario | GPT-4o | O3 Mini | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small Script (1K lines) | $0.41 | $0.17 | O3 Mini saves $0.24 (58%) |
| Medium Feature (10K lines) | $3.06 | $1.27 | O3 Mini saves $1.80 (59%) |
| Large Project (50K lines) | $15.31 | $6.33 | O3 Mini saves $8.99 (59%) |
| Code Review (5K lines) | $0.78 | $0.30 | O3 Mini saves $0.48 (61%) |
Value Analysis (Price per Benchmark Score Point)
Lower is better — how much you pay for each point of benchmark performance.
| Model | Overall Score | Price per Score Point | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-4o | 75 | $0.033/pt | Higher cost per point |
| O3 Mini | 80 | $0.014/pt | Better value |
O3 Mini delivers the best value at $0.014 per score point.
Strengths & Weaknesses
GPT-4o
- + Strong general-purpose
- + Good multimodal
- - Less consistent on coding than Claude
O3 Mini
- + Excellent at competitive programming
- + Strong algorithmic reasoning
- - Optimized for reasoning, not chat
Verdict
O3 Mini wins on both price and performance — $1.10/M input with a benchmark score of 80/100.
For most developers, this is the clear choice between these two models.
Compare with Other Models
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Claude Opus 4
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Claude 3.5 Sonnet
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Claude 3.5 Haiku
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Claude 3 Opus
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Claude 3 Sonnet
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