Noometry

Model comparison

GPT-4.1 nano vs GPT-5

GPT-5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.9 to 27.7 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4.1 nano costs 20× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 37 shared benchmarks.

GPT-4.1 nano OpenAI

27.7

Rank #322 Confirmed

GPT-5 OpenAI

50.9

Rank #37 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 37 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 nano scores higher in 0 categories and GPT-5 in 10 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in long context, where GPT-5 leads 69.5 to 23.7.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Aider Polyglot: 8.9% for GPT-4.1 nano and 88% for GPT-5.
  • GPT-4.1 nano is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $10 for GPT-5.
  • GPT-4.1 nano accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 400K.

Side by side

GPT-4.1 nanoGPT-5
ProviderOpenAIOpenAI
Noometry Index27.750.9
Released2025-04-142025-08-07
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1.05M400K
Max output33K128K
Input $ / M tokens$0.10$1.25
Output $ / M tokens$0.40$10
Results tracked3869

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Category by category

Coding GPT-5 leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 23.8 (#325), GPT-5: 50.7 (#39)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoGPT-5
Aider Polyglot8.9%88%
SciCode25.9%42.9%
WeirdML19%60.7%
LMArena Coding13061436
SWE-bench Verified—73.6%
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—65%
LMArena WebDev—1417
GSO—6.9%
ALE-Bench—1,162
AlgoTune—1.67

Agentic & Tool Use GPT-5 leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 26.3 (#98), GPT-5: 33.0 (#53)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoGPT-5
Terminal-Bench—49.6%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard33%—
GDPval—34.8%
Remote Labor Index—1.7%
DeepResearch Bench—49.6%
BALROG—32.8%
LMArena Search—1133
METR Time Horizons—69.6%

Reasoning GPT-5 leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 8.6 (#344), GPT-5: 38.3 (#55)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoGPT-5
ARC-AGI-20%9.9%
Kagi LLM Benchmark33.3%72.7%
ARC-AGI-10%65.7%
CritPt0%12.6%
LMArena Hard Prompts12861415
DTBench52.5%90.7%
LMCA5.5%40%
Epoch Capabilities Index129.62150
SimpleBench—56.7%
Chess Puzzles—37%
EnigmaEval—10.5%
EBR-Bench—12.7%
Mystery Game Puzzles—23%
ForecastBench—61.4

Math GPT-5 leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 25.5 (#246), GPT-5: 54.6 (#36)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoGPT-5
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202528.9%91.4%
Omni-MATH36.7%64.7%
LMArena Math12741406
MATH Level 570%98.1%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)1%32.4%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—55.4%
FrontierMath Tier 4—22%
ProofBench—18%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—12.5%

Knowledge GPT-5 leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 21.8 (#268), GPT-5: 56.5 (#37)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoGPT-5
GPQA Diamond48.9%86.2%
SimpleQA Verified6%50.1%
MMLU-Pro55%86.3%
GPQA (HELM)50.7%79.2%
LMArena Expert12721420
Humanity's Last Exam—25.3%
Confabulations—10.3%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—14.7%

Multimodal GPT-5 leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 28.6 (#108), GPT-5: 46.1 (#12)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoGPT-5
LMArena Vision10631232
GeoBench—81%
VPCT—66%

Multilingual GPT-5 leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 41.8 (#200), GPT-5: 51.5 (#105)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoGPT-5
LMArena Non-English12601397
LMArena Chinese12701423
LMArena German12881415
LMArena Japanese11991411
LMArena Russian12611406
LMArena French—1409
LMArena Korean—1361
LMArena Spanish—1398

Instruction Following GPT-5 leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 68.0 (#188), GPT-5: 74.0 (#107)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoGPT-5
IFEval84.3%87.5%
LMArena Instruction Following12671388

Long Context GPT-5 leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 23.7 (#291), GPT-5: 69.5 (#2)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoGPT-5
Fiction.LiveBench25%97.2%
LMArena Longer Query12831399

Writing & Preference GPT-5 leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 40.7 (#238), GPT-5: 63.5 (#63)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoGPT-5
LMArena Text12851406
LMArena Creative Writing12601365
EQ-Bench Creative Writing9461627
WildBench81.2%85.7%
LMArena Multi-Turn12771426
Short-Story Creative Writing—86%

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-4.1 nano better than GPT-5?

GPT-5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.9 to 27.7 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4.1 nano costs 20× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 nano or GPT-5?

GPT-4.1 nano is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; GPT-5 lists at $1.25 and $10.

Is GPT-4.1 nano or GPT-5 better for coding?

GPT-5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.7 versus 23.8 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-4.1 nano does, with 1.05M tokens against 400K.

How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 nano and GPT-5 share?

37 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 nano has 38 scored results on Noometry and GPT-5 has 69.

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