Model comparison
GPT-4o mini vs GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra is the stronger model overall, scoring 59.2 to 25.5 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4o mini costs 17× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.6 Terra's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 33 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 33 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4o mini scores higher in 0 categories and GPT-5.6 Terra in 10 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where GPT-5.6 Terra leads 81.6 to 10.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 6.9% for GPT-4o mini and 99.7% for GPT-5.6 Terra.
- GPT-4o mini is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.60 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $12 for GPT-5.6 Terra.
- GPT-5.6 Terra accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| GPT-4o mini | GPT-5.6 Terra | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | OpenAI |
| Noometry Index | 25.5 | 59.2 |
| Released | 2024-07-18 | 2026-07-09 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 128K | 1.05M |
| Max output | 16K | 128K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.15 | $2 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.60 | $12 |
| Results tracked | 60 | 52 |
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Category by category
Coding GPT-5.6 Terra leads
GPT-4o mini: 22.0 (#335), GPT-5.6 Terra: 57.7 (#19)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | GPT-5.6 Terra |
|---|---|---|
| WeirdML | 11.8% | 78.3% |
| LMArena Coding | 1290 | 1484 |
| DeepSWE | — | 69.6% |
| FrontierCode | — | 41.3% |
| Aider Polyglot | 3.6% | — |
| CursorBench | — | 41.3% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1522 |
| SciCode | — | 55% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 46.1% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 43.1% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 57.4% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 1,951 |
| HumanEval+ | 83.5% | — |
| MBPP+ | 72.2% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use GPT-5.6 Terra leads
GPT-4o mini: 27.5 (#101), GPT-5.6 Terra: 40.1 (#25)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | GPT-5.6 Terra |
|---|---|---|
| BALROG | 17.4% | 53.2% |
| APEX-Agents | — | 58.2% |
| GDP.pdf | — | 24.7% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 7,343 |
Reasoning GPT-5.6 Terra leads
GPT-4o mini: 8.7 (#347), GPT-5.6 Terra: 60.7 (#21)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | GPT-5.6 Terra |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | 83.9% |
| SimpleBench | 10.7% | 48.9% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 28.8% | 51.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 54% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1267 | 1468 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 12% | 35% |
| DTBench | 54.4% | 93.3% |
| LMCA | 10.4% | 55% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 126.56 | 159.62 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 78.4% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 96.5% |
| CritPt | — | 30% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 32.8% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 50% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 83.8% |
| LiveBench | 41.3% | — |
| PIQA | 88.7% | — |
Math GPT-5.6 Terra leads
GPT-4o mini: 10.4 (#314), GPT-5.6 Terra: 81.6 (#12)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | GPT-5.6 Terra |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 0.7% | 86% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.9% | 99.7% |
| LMArena Math | 1267 | 1466 |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 70.7% |
| ProofBench | — | 74% |
| Omni-MATH | 28% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 36.3% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 52.6% | — |
| GSM8K | 91.3% | — |
Knowledge GPT-5.6 Terra leads
GPT-4o mini: 17.7 (#284), GPT-5.6 Terra: 61.2 (#30)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | GPT-5.6 Terra |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 37.7% | 93.3% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 8.3% | 43.2% |
| LMArena Expert | 1235 | 1492 |
| MMLU-Pro | 60.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 37.2% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 36.8% | — |
| BoolQ | 88.7% | — |
| MMLU | 81.8% | — |
Multimodal GPT-5.6 Terra leads
GPT-4o mini: 25.9 (#122), GPT-5.6 Terra: 47.3 (#11)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | GPT-5.6 Terra |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1066 | 1271 |
| Video-MME | 64.8% | — |
| GeoBench | 64% | — |
| VPCT | 34% | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | — | 30.8% |
| Furniture Assembly | — | 54.2% |
| LMArena Document | — | 1472 |
Multilingual GPT-5.6 Terra leads
GPT-4o mini: 42.0 (#199), GPT-5.6 Terra: 54.4 (#44)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | GPT-5.6 Terra |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1266 | 1439 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1265 | 1513 |
| LMArena French | 1297 | 1471 |
| LMArena German | 1272 | 1460 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1216 | 1457 |
| LMArena Korean | 1195 | 1425 |
| LMArena Russian | 1275 | 1450 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1276 | 1448 |
Instruction Following GPT-5.6 Terra leads
GPT-4o mini: 61.9 (#239), GPT-5.6 Terra: 76.4 (#40)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | GPT-5.6 Terra |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1258 | 1454 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 56.8% | — |
| IFEval | 78.2% | — |
Long Context GPT-5.6 Terra leads
GPT-4o mini: 39.1 (#186), GPT-5.6 Terra: 44.4 (#68)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | GPT-5.6 Terra |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1289 | 1451 |
Writing & Preference GPT-5.6 Terra leads
GPT-4o mini: 39.5 (#248), GPT-5.6 Terra: 70.2 (#23)
| Benchmark | GPT-4o mini | GPT-5.6 Terra |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1286 | 1447 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1268 | 1410 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 873 | 1855 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1285 | 1449 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 67.2% | — |
| WildBench | 79.1% | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 1234 |
| LiveBench Language | 28.6% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is GPT-4o mini better than GPT-5.6 Terra?
GPT-5.6 Terra is the stronger model overall, scoring 59.2 to 25.5 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4o mini costs 17× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.6 Terra's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, GPT-4o mini or GPT-5.6 Terra?
GPT-4o mini is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens; GPT-5.6 Terra lists at $2 and $12.
Is GPT-4o mini or GPT-5.6 Terra better for coding?
GPT-5.6 Terra scores higher on coding benchmarks: 57.7 versus 22.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
GPT-5.6 Terra does, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do GPT-4o mini and GPT-5.6 Terra share?
33 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4o mini has 60 scored results on Noometry and GPT-5.6 Terra has 52.