# GPT-4.1 mini vs o3-mini

> o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 33.6 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4.1 mini costs 2.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gpt-4-1-mini-vs-o3-mini
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 36

## Summary

- They share 36 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 mini scores higher in 1 category and o3-mini in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where o3-mini leads 40.8 to 30.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is CadEval: 16% for GPT-4.1 mini and 54% for o3-mini.
- GPT-4.1 mini is cheaper at $0.40 / $1.60 per million input/output tokens, against $1.10 / $4.40 for o3-mini.
- GPT-4.1 mini accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 200K.

## Snapshot

| | GPT-4.1 mini | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | OpenAI |
| Noometry Index | 33.6 | 36.7 |
| Rank | 240 | 212 |
| Context | 1.05M | 200K |
| Input $/M | $0.40 | $1.10 |
| Output $/M | $1.60 | $4.40 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- GPT-4.1 mini: 30.6 (#293)
- o3-mini: 40.8 (#132)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Aider Polyglot | 32.4% | 60.4% |
| SciCode | 40.4% | 39.8% |
| WeirdML | 37.6% | 43.7% |
| LMArena Coding | 1367 | 1378 |
| CadEval | 16% | 54% |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 23.9% | — |
| GSO | — | 1.3% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 48.9% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 82.7% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- GPT-4.1 mini: 33.3 (#55)
- o3-mini: 29.6 (#84)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 50.5% | — |
| Cybench | — | 22.5% |

## Reasoning

- GPT-4.1 mini: 10.8 (#340)
- o3-mini: 16.3 (#305)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | 3% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 3.5% | 34.5% |
| CritPt | 0% | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 7% | 17% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1349 | 1366 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 7% | 7% |
| DTBench | 68.8% | 68.8% |
| LMCA | 21.1% | 19% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 135.01 | 140.34 |
| SimpleBench | — | 22.8% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 48.6% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 89.6% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 70.6% |
| ForecastBench | — | 59.6 |
| LiveBench | — | 75.9% |

## Math

- GPT-4.1 mini: 24.1 (#270)
- o3-mini: 28.1 (#244)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 6.7% | 18.6% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 44.7% | 76.9% |
| LMArena Math | 1343 | 1396 |
| MATH Level 5 | 87.3% | 96.5% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 4.5% | 12.4% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 0% |
| Omni-MATH | 49.1% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 77.3% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |

## Knowledge

- GPT-4.1 mini: 34.7 (#194)
- o3-mini: 38.3 (#146)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 65.8% | 77% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 12.7% | 15.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1338 | 1364 |
| MMLU-Pro | 78.3% | — |
| Confabulations | — | 17.9% |
| GPQA (HELM) | 61.4% | — |

## Multimodal

- GPT-4.1 mini: 35.8 (#82)
- o3-mini: —

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1181 | — |

## Multilingual

- GPT-4.1 mini: 45.7 (#166)
- o3-mini: 45.7 (#164)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1319 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1329 | 1379 |
| LMArena French | 1358 | 1334 |
| LMArena German | 1351 | 1303 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1290 | 1286 |
| LMArena Korean | 1298 | 1314 |
| LMArena Russian | 1324 | 1304 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1319 | 1321 |

## Instruction Following

- GPT-4.1 mini: 73.7 (#118)
- o3-mini: 75.1 (#72)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1333 | 1337 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 84.4% |
| IFEval | 90.4% | — |

## Long Context

- GPT-4.1 mini: 31.8 (#275)
- o3-mini: 33.8 (#256)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 44.4% | 50% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1344 | 1343 |

## Writing & Preference

- GPT-4.1 mini: 48.6 (#199)
- o3-mini: 50.3 (#182)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1340 | 1337 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1300 | 1286 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1354 | 1320 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 61.7% |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1147 | — |
| WildBench | 83.8% | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 50.7% |

## FAQ

### Is GPT-4.1 mini better than o3-mini?

o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 33.6 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4.1 mini costs 2.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 mini or o3-mini?

GPT-4.1 mini is cheaper. It lists at $0.40 per million input tokens and $1.60 per million output tokens; o3-mini lists at $1.10 and $4.40.

### Is GPT-4.1 mini or o3-mini better for coding?

o3-mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 30.6 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-4.1 mini does, with 1.05M tokens against 200K.

### How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 mini and o3-mini share?

36 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 mini has 47 scored results on Noometry and o3-mini has 51.