Model comparison

GPT-4.1 mini vs Phi-4 Mini

GPT-4.1 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.6 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 Mini costs 5.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-4.1 mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.

GPT-4.1 mini OpenAI

33.6

Rank #240 Confirmed

Phi-4 Mini Microsoft

30.9

Rank #283 Reported

Summary

  • They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 mini scores higher in 2 categories and Phi-4 Mini in 1 category; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Phi-4 Mini leads 22.4 to 10.8.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is SciCode: 40.4% for GPT-4.1 mini and 10.8% for Phi-4 Mini.
  • Phi-4 Mini is cheaper at $0.075 / $0.30 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $1.60 for GPT-4.1 mini.
  • GPT-4.1 mini accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 128K.
  • Phi-4 Mini has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-4.1 mini and Phi-4 Mini specifications
GPT-4.1 miniPhi-4 Mini
ProviderOpenAIMicrosoft
Noometry Index33.630.9
Released2025-04-142024-12-11
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M128K
Max output33K4K
Input $ / M tokens$0.40$0.075
Output $ / M tokens$1.60$0.30
Results tracked473

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Category by category

Coding GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 30.6 (#293), Phi-4 Mini: 28.1 (#317)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi-4 Mini
SciCode40.4%10.8%
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)23.9%—
Aider Polyglot32.4%—
WeirdML37.6%—
BigCodeBench Instruct48.9%—
LMArena Coding1367—
CadEval16%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 33.3 (#55), Phi-4 Mini: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi-4 Mini
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard50.5%—

Reasoning Phi-4 Mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 10.8 (#340), Phi-4 Mini: 22.4 (#195)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi-4 Mini
CritPt0%0%
ARC-AGI-20%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark48.6%—
ARC-AGI-13.5%—
Chess Puzzles7%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1349—
Mystery Game Puzzles7%—
DTBench68.8%—
LMCA21.1%—
Epoch Capabilities Index135.01—

Math Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 24.1 (#270), Phi-4 Mini: —

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi-4 Mini
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)6.7%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202544.7%—
Omni-MATH49.1%—
LMArena Math1343—
MATH Level 587.3%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)4.5%—

Knowledge GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 34.7 (#194), Phi-4 Mini: 25.3 (#262)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi-4 Mini
GPQA Diamond65.8%—
SimpleQA Verified12.7%—
MMLU-Pro78.3%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—23.5%
GPQA (HELM)61.4%—
LMArena Expert1338—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 35.8 (#82), Phi-4 Mini: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi-4 Mini
LMArena Vision1181—

Multilingual Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 45.7 (#166), Phi-4 Mini: —

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi-4 Mini
LMArena Non-English1318—
LMArena Chinese1329—
LMArena French1358—
LMArena German1351—
LMArena Japanese1290—
LMArena Korean1298—
LMArena Russian1324—
LMArena Spanish1319—

Instruction Following Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 73.7 (#118), Phi-4 Mini: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi-4 Mini
IFEval90.4%—
LMArena Instruction Following1333—

Long Context Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 31.8 (#275), Phi-4 Mini: —

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi-4 Mini
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—
LMArena Longer Query1344—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 48.6 (#199), Phi-4 Mini: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi-4 Mini
LMArena Text1340—
LMArena Creative Writing1300—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1147—
WildBench83.8%—
LMArena Multi-Turn1354—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-4.1 mini better than Phi-4 Mini?

GPT-4.1 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.6 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 Mini costs 5.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-4.1 mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 mini or Phi-4 Mini?

Phi-4 Mini is cheaper. It lists at $0.075 per million input tokens and $0.30 per million output tokens; GPT-4.1 mini lists at $0.40 and $1.60.

Is GPT-4.1 mini or Phi-4 Mini better for coding?

GPT-4.1 mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 30.6 versus 28.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-4.1 mini does, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 mini and Phi-4 Mini share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 mini has 47 scored results on Noometry and Phi-4 Mini has 3.

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