Which model is better: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or OpenAI o4-mini?
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 93.2% cheaper for input tokens ($0.07 vs. $1.10 per 1M tokens) and $0.30 vs. $4.40 for output tokens (14.7x cost advantage). In terms of operational performance, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite delivers lower response latency at 78ms TTFT (602ms faster than OpenAI o4-mini) with 265 vs. 125 tok/s throughput. OpenAI o4-mini leads coding evaluations at 68.1% SWE-bench Verified vs. 55.4% for Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and 81.4% vs. 68.4% on GPQA Diamond.
Verified daily via automated API latency tests and official documentation.
Zero-Shot RAG Verified
Verified Performance & Unit Economics Delta (12 Dimensions)
Daily synchronized metrics across token pricing, prompt cache economics, latency, throughput, and 5 capability benchmarks.
Metric / Dimension
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
OpenAI o4-mini
Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens
$0.07
$1.10
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 14.7x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens
$0.30
$4.40
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (93.2% lower)
Prompt Cache Read / 1M
$0.015
$0.275
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 18.3x cheaper
Prompt Cache Write / 1M
$0.07
$1.10
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 14.7x cheaper
Context Window (Max Output)
1,049k (33k out)
205k (100k out)
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (5.1x larger context)
Avg TTFT Response Latency
78ms
680ms
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (602ms faster)
Generation Speed (Throughput)
265 tok/s
125 tok/s
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (+140 tok/s faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding)
55.4%
68.1%
OpenAI o4-mini (+12.7% lead)
GPQA Diamond (PhD STEM)
68.4%
81.4%
OpenAI o4-mini (+13.0% lead)
MMLU-Pro (Multi-Discipline)
80.1%
85.6%
OpenAI o4-mini (+5.5% lead)
MATH-500 (Quantitative Logic)
90.2%
97.8%
OpenAI o4-mini (+7.6% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR)
81.5 / 100
63.7 / 100
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (+17.8 pts)
Interactive Monthly Token Economics & ROI Forecaster
Model production workloads across prompt, completion, and cached context tokens, or switch models on the fly.
Which is cheaper: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or OpenAI o4-mini?
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $0.075/1M input tokens ($0.30/1M output) compared to $1.10/1M input ($4.40/1M output) for OpenAI o4-mini.
Which model has lower TTFT latency and higher tok/s throughput: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or OpenAI o4-mini?
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite delivers faster first-token latency at 78ms TTFT (265 tok/s throughput) compared to 680ms TTFT (125 tok/s) for OpenAI o4-mini.
How do Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and OpenAI o4-mini compare on SWE-bench coding and GPQA Diamond reasoning?
On SWE-bench Verified software engineering, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite scores 55.4% versus 68.1% for OpenAI o4-mini. On GPQA Diamond graduate-level STEM reasoning, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite scores 68.4% versus 81.4% for OpenAI o4-mini (and 90.2% vs 97.8% on MATH-500).
When should you choose Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite?
Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (Google) for high-frequency data pipelines, real-time routing, large-scale document tagging, and ultra-low-cost conversational assistants — offering a 1,048k context window, 78ms TTFT, and $0.07/1M input pricing ($0.015/1M cached reads).
When should you choose OpenAI o4-mini?
Choose OpenAI o4-mini (OpenAI) for automated PR review, high-volume agentic coding loops, SQL/data analysis, and visual document reasoning — offering a 204k context window, 680ms TTFT, and $1.10/1M input pricing ($0.275/1M cached reads).
