Head-to-Head API Cost Benchmark

GPT-4o vs GPT-4o mini: API Price & Latency Comparison

On a standard B2B production workload (5,000 req/day), GPT-4o mini is 94.0% cheaper ($78.19/mo vs $1303.12/mo), while GPT-4o mini leads in token generation speed (140 tok/s).

Side-by-Side Specification & Billing Matrix

Metric GPT-4o (OpenAI) GPT-4o mini (OpenAI) Advantage
Standard Input / 1M Tokens $2.500 $0.150 GPT-4o mini
Cached Input / 1M Tokens $1.250 $0.075 GPT-4o mini
Output Generation / 1M Tokens $10.00 $0.60 GPT-4o mini
Intelligence / Benchmark Quality 1286 LMSYS Elo 1224 LMSYS Elo GPT-4o
Monthly Spend (5k req/day, 50% cache) $1303.12 / mo $78.19 / mo GPT-4o mini (-94.0%)
Context Window 128,000 tokens 128,000 tokens GPT-4o
Output Speed (Throughput) 85 tokens/sec 140 tokens/sec GPT-4o mini
Batch API Discount -50% (OpenAI) -50% (OpenAI) OpenAI
Primary Workload Fit Complex multi-step customer facing workflows, vision + JSON structured outputs High-volume classification, extraction, RAG summarization, low-cost chatbots Workload Dependent
Deploy / Console Access Try GPT-4o → Try GPT-4o mini → Open Full Simulator