Nano Banana 2.1 vs GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18)
GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) costs 12.5x less per output token than Nano Banana 2.1 ($0.60 vs $7.50 per million). Updated October 23, 2026; no benchmark has tested both models yet.
- Coding
- No data
- Overall
- No data
- Output $/M
- $7.50
- Coding
- No data
- Overall
- No data
- Output $/M
- $0.60
Nano Banana 2.1 or GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18): which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
No benchmark has tested both yet. Nano Banana 2.1 has results on Design Arena: images, Design Arena: graphic design and Design Arena: logos; GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) on Aider polyglot, WeirdML and LMArena Text: coding. Compare them on price and context instead.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Image generation
Design Arena: images
No call
Only Nano Banana 2.1 has a Design Arena: images result, 1290.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18)
GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) takes 128K tokens against 66K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18)
Nano Banana 2.1 $0.0053, GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) $0.0004 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Nano Banana 2.1 not benchmarked, GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- None yet: no category has been tested on both models.
- Widest single gap
- None yet: no benchmark has tested both models.
- Output price
- Nano Banana 2.1 $7.50 against GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) $0.60 per million output tokens, 12.5x apart.
- Context window
- Nano Banana 2.1 takes 66K tokens, GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) 128K.
Benchmark by benchmark
Every board either model has a result on, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale. Only one model is measured on each, so no row names a leader.
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index4 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana 2.1 | GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | Not measured | 3.6% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 11.8% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1289 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1291 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 39 boards here | |||
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana 2.1 | GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| BALROG | Not measured | 17.4% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 41 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana 2.1 | GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 37.7% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| SimpleBench | Not measured | 10.7% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 3.0% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 12.0% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| VPCT | Not measured | 34.0% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1267 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1235 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1278 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana 2.1 | GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 6.9% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 0.7% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| MATH level 5 | Not measured | 52.6% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1267 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1271 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana 2.1 | GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 8.3% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| MMLU | Not measured | 76.7% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| GeoBench | Not measured | 64.0% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1286 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1282 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1305 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1265 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index21 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana 2.1 | GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | Not measured | 67.2% | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1286 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1258 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1268 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1066 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1301 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1266 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1265 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1272 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1216 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1195 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1297 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1276 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1275 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1244 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1285 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1289 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1282 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1253 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1072 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | Not measured | 1033 | Only GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 27 boards here | |||
Image generationDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana 2.1 | GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: images | 1290 | Not measured | Only Nano Banana 2.1 measured |
| Design Arena: graphic design | 1333 | Not measured | Only Nano Banana 2.1 measured |
| Design Arena: logos | 1277 | Not measured | Only Nano Banana 2.1 measured |
| LMArena Text to Image | 1328 | Not measured | Only Nano Banana 2.1 measured |
| LMArena Image Edit | 1426 | Not measured | Only Nano Banana 2.1 measured |
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Google Nano Banana 2.1 | OpenAI GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | October 6, 2026 | July 18, 2024 |
| Context window | 66K | 128K |
| Input $/Mtok | $1.50 | $0.15 |
| Output $/Mtok | $7.50 | $0.60 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Nano Banana 2.1 better than GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
Which is cheaper, Nano Banana 2.1 or GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18)?
Nano Banana 2.1 costs $1.50 per million input tokens and $7.50 per million output tokens; GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) costs $0.15 and $0.60. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Nano Banana 2.1 or GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18)?
GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18), with 128K tokens against 66K.
Has any benchmark tested both Nano Banana 2.1 and GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18)?
No benchmark has tested both yet. Nano Banana 2.1 has results on Design Arena: images, Design Arena: graphic design and Design Arena: logos; GPT-4o-mini (2024-07-18) on Aider polyglot, WeirdML and LMArena Text: coding. Compare them on price and context instead. Data as of October 23, 2026.