# GPT-4.1 nano vs o3-mini

> o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 27.7 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4.1 nano costs 11× 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-nano-vs-o3-mini
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 29

## Summary

- They share 29 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 nano scores higher in 0 categories and o3-mini in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where o3-mini leads 41.4 to 23.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Aider Polyglot: 8.9% for GPT-4.1 nano and 60.4% for o3-mini.
- GPT-4.1 nano is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $1.10 / $4.40 for o3-mini.
- GPT-4.1 nano accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 200K.

## Snapshot

| | GPT-4.1 nano | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | OpenAI |
| Noometry Index | 27.7 | 36.7 |
| Rank | 322 | 205 |
| Context | 1.05M | 200K |
| Input $/M | $0.10 | $1.10 |
| Output $/M | $0.40 | $4.40 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- GPT-4.1 nano: 23.8 (#325)
- o3-mini: 41.4 (#116)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Aider Polyglot | 8.9% | 60.4% |
| SciCode | 25.9% | 39.8% |
| WeirdML | 19% | 43.7% |
| LMArena Coding | 1306 | 1378 |
| GSO | — | 1.3% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 82.7% |
| CadEval | — | 54% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- GPT-4.1 nano: 26.3 (#98)
- o3-mini: 29.3 (#79)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 33% | — |
| Cybench | — | 22.5% |

## Reasoning

- GPT-4.1 nano: 8.6 (#344)
- o3-mini: 16.3 (#295)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | 3% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 0% | 34.5% |
| CritPt | 0% | 0.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1286 | 1366 |
| DTBench | 52.5% | 68.8% |
| LMCA | 5.5% | 19% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 129.62 | 140.35 |
| SimpleBench | — | 22.8% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 33.3% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 17% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 89.6% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 7% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 70.6% |
| ForecastBench | — | 59.6 |
| LiveBench | — | 75.9% |

## Math

- GPT-4.1 nano: 25.5 (#246)
- o3-mini: 27.6 (#236)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 28.9% | 76.9% |
| LMArena Math | 1274 | 1396 |
| MATH Level 5 | 70% | 96.5% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1% | 12.4% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.6% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 0% |
| Omni-MATH | 36.7% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 77.3% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |

## Knowledge

- GPT-4.1 nano: 21.8 (#268)
- o3-mini: 38.3 (#135)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 48.9% | 77% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 6% | 15.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1272 | 1364 |
| MMLU-Pro | 55% | — |
| Confabulations | — | 17.9% |
| GPQA (HELM) | 50.7% | — |

## Multimodal

- GPT-4.1 nano: 28.6 (#108)
- o3-mini: —

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1063 | — |

## Multilingual

- GPT-4.1 nano: 41.8 (#200)
- o3-mini: 45.9 (#159)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1260 | 1319 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1270 | 1379 |
| LMArena German | 1288 | 1303 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1199 | 1286 |
| LMArena Russian | 1261 | 1304 |
| LMArena French | — | 1333 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1314 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1321 |

## Instruction Following

- GPT-4.1 nano: 68.0 (#188)
- o3-mini: 75.3 (#67)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1267 | 1338 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 84.4% |
| IFEval | 84.3% | — |

## Long Context

- GPT-4.1 nano: 23.7 (#291)
- o3-mini: 33.8 (#251)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 25% | 50% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1283 | 1343 |

## Writing & Preference

- GPT-4.1 nano: 40.7 (#238)
- o3-mini: 50.4 (#177)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1285 | 1337 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1260 | 1286 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1277 | 1320 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 61.7% |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 946 | — |
| WildBench | 81.2% | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 50.7% |

## FAQ

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

o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 27.7 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4.1 nano costs 11× 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 nano or o3-mini?

GPT-4.1 nano is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; o3-mini lists at $1.10 and $4.40.

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

o3-mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.4 versus 23.8 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

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

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

29 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 nano has 38 scored results on Noometry and o3-mini has 51.