GPT-4 Paid vs GPT-5 Mini Paid
GPT-4 vs GPT-5 Mini compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Full 2026 breakdown.
GPT-4 — full profile › · GPT-5 Mini — full profile ›
Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai
Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.
$60 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
$2 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
GPT-4 vs GPT-5 Mini specs
| Spec | GPT-4 | GPT-5 Mini | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | OpenAI | – |
| Type | Proprietary | Proprietary | – |
| Context window | 8K tokens | 400K tokens | |
| Input price | $30/M | $0.25/M | |
| Output price | $60/M | $2/M | |
| Vision / multimodal | No | Yes | |
| Tool / function calling | Yes | Yes | = Tie |
| Self-hostable | No (API only) | No (API only) | – |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary | – |
Price gap & when to choose each
GPT-5 Mini is ~30× cheaper than GPT-4 on output tokens ($2 vs $60 per M tokens).
- You want frontier performance through a managed API
- You value reliability & ecosystem
- You don't want to manage infrastructure
- You want frontier performance through a managed API
- You need the longer 400K context window
- You want the lower output price
- You value reliability & ecosystem
- You don't want to manage infrastructure
Feature comparison
| Capability | GPT-4 | GPT-5 Mini |
|---|---|---|
| Open weights (downloadable) | ✗ | ✗ |
| Self-hostable | ✗ | ✗ |
| Runs fully offline | ✗ | ✗ |
| Vision / multimodal | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tool / function calling | ✓ | ✓ |
| 1M+ context window | ✗ | ✗ |
Benchmarks: GPT-4 vs GPT-5 Mini
Independent benchmark scores measured by Artificial Analysis. Higher is better (except latency).
Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.
How GPT-4 and GPT-5 Mini score
| Criterion | GPT-4 | GPT-5 Mini |
|---|---|---|
| Cost-efficiency | 2.0 | 4.5 |
| Context window | 2.0 | 4.5 |
| Openness | 1.5 | 1.5 |
| Self-hosting | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Multimodality | 3.5 | 5.0 |
Scores come from live data — output price (cost), context length, open vs closed weights (openness & self-hosting) and vision/tool support (multimodality). Raw task quality isn't scored here; it depends on your benchmark — see the verdict.
What each model is
GPT-4 Paid
OpenAI's flagship model, GPT-4 is a large-scale multimodal language model capable of solving difficult problems with greater accuracy than previous models due to its broader general knowledge and advanced reasoning...
GPT-5 Mini Paid
GPT-5 Mini is a compact version of GPT-5, designed to handle lighter-weight reasoning tasks. It provides the same instruction-following and safety-tuning benefits as GPT-5, but with reduced latency and cost....
Other models in these families
These variants are tracked but not compared here — one page per family keeps the comparison readable.
Frequently asked questions
GPT-4 vs GPT-5 Mini — which is cheaper?
GPT-5 Mini is cheaper on output ($2/M vs $60/M).
Which has the larger context window?
GPT-5 Mini offers the larger context window (400K tokens).
GPT-4 vs GPT-5 Mini — which should I pick in 2026?
Choose GPT-5 Mini for the lower output price ($2/M vs $60/M). It also gives you the larger 400K context window.
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