Which model is better: GPT-4o Mini or OpenAI o3-mini?

GPT-4o Mini is 86.4% cheaper for input tokens ($0.15 vs. $1.10 per 1M tokens) and $0.60 vs. $4.40 for output tokens (7.3x cost difference). In terms of operational performance, GPT-4o Mini delivers faster response latency with 220ms TTFT (980ms faster than o3-mini). o3-mini leads coding benchmarks at 49.3% SWE-bench vs. 41.0% for GPT-4o Mini.
Verified daily via automated API latency tests and official documentation.

Verified Performance & Unit Economics Delta

Daily synchronized metrics from synthetic latency endpoints and benchmark evaluations.

Metric / Dimension GPT-4o Mini OpenAI o3-mini Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens $0.15 $1.10 GPT-4o Mini is 7.3x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens $0.60 $4.40 GPT-4o Mini (86.4% lower)
Prompt Cache Read / 1M $0.075 $0.550 GPT-4o Mini is 7.3x cheaper
Prompt Cache Write / 1M $0.15 $1.10 GPT-4o Mini is 7.3x cheaper
Avg TTFT Response Latency 220ms 1250ms GPT-4o Mini (+1030ms faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding) 41% 49.3% OpenAI o3-mini (+8.3% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR) 70.6 / 100 58.2 / 100 GPT-4o Mini (+12.4 pts)

Interactive Monthly Token Economics & ROI Forecaster

Model your expected production workload across prompt (input) and completion (output) tokens with prompt caching economics.

Live Calculation Engine
10.0M Tokens
100K 50M 250M 500M+
2.5M Tokens
100K 10M 50M 100M+

Estimated Monthly Spend

GPT-4o Mini $3.00

$0.15/1M in · $0.60/1M out

Prompt Cache: $0.075/1M read · $0.15/1M write

OpenAI o3-mini $22.00

$1.10/1M in · $4.40/1M out

Prompt Cache: $0.550/1M read · $1.10/1M write

Projected Monthly Cost Reduction
$19.00 / mo
(86.4% lower cost with GPT-4o Mini)
A

When to Choose GPT-4o Mini

Choose GPT-4o Mini when you need Ultra-affordable, low-latency multimodal model optimized for high-volume customer queries, fine-tuning, and structured JSON extraction. and have an infrastructure budget aligned with $0.15/1M tokens.

B

When to Choose OpenAI o3-mini

Choose o3-mini when you need High-throughput, cost-efficient STEM reasoning, mathematics, and competitive coding pipelines. and prioritize OpenAI ecosystem integration at $1.10/1M tokens.

Related Questions & Decision Factors

Which is cheaper: GPT-4o Mini or OpenAI o3-mini?

GPT-4o Mini is cheaper at $0.15/1M input tokens compared to $1.10/1M for OpenAI o3-mini.

Which model has lower latency: GPT-4o Mini or OpenAI o3-mini?

GPT-4o Mini delivers faster response times with an average TTFT of 220ms vs 1250ms for OpenAI o3-mini.

When should you choose GPT-4o Mini?

Choose GPT-4o Mini when you need Ultra-affordable, low-latency multimodal model optimized for high-volume customer queries, fine-tuning, and structured JSON extraction. and have an infrastructure budget aligned with $0.15/1M tokens.

When should you choose OpenAI o3-mini?

Choose o3-mini when you need High-throughput, cost-efficient STEM reasoning, mathematics, and competitive coding pipelines. and prioritize OpenAI ecosystem integration at $1.10/1M tokens.

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