GPT-4.1 vs GPT-5 Image Mini
GPT-5 Image Mini costs 4.0x less per output token than GPT-4.1 ($2.00 vs $8.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; no benchmark has tested both models yet.
- Coding
- No data
- Overall
- 12.7
- Output $/M
- $8.00
- Coding
- No data
- Overall
- No data
- Output $/M
- $2.00
GPT-4.1 or GPT-5 Image Mini: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick GPT-4.1 for a larger context window (1.05M against 400K tokens).
No benchmark has tested both yet. GPT-4.1 has results on Aider polyglot, SWE-bench Verified and SWE-bench Multimodal; GPT-5 Image Mini on Design Arena: images, Design Arena: graphic design and Design Arena: logos. 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
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only GPT-4.1 has a AA Intelligence Index result, 12.7.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only GPT-4.1 has a GPQA Diamond result, 65.4%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only GPT-4.1 has a AIME result, 39.6%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only GPT-4.1 has a MMLU Pro result, 80.5%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only GPT-4.1 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1039.
Directional only
Image generation
Design Arena: images
No call
Only GPT-5 Image Mini has a Design Arena: images result, 1184.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
GPT-4.1
GPT-4.1 takes 1.05M tokens against 400K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
GPT-5 Image Mini
GPT-4.1 $0.0060, GPT-5 Image Mini $0.0035 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only GPT-4.1 has the number, $0.37.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- GPT-4.1 not benchmarked, GPT-5 Image Mini 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
- GPT-4.1 $8.00 against GPT-5 Image Mini $2.00 per million output tokens, 4.0x apart.
- Context window
- GPT-4.1 takes 1.05M tokens, GPT-5 Image Mini 400K.
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 Index10 boards measured
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | GPT-5 Image Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | 52.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified | 39.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal | 31.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 54.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 45.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 13.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| WeirdML | 39.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 558.1 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1390 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1391 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 28 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards measured
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | GPT-5 Image Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 12.7 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 136.7 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board measured
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | GPT-5 Image Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 47.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 38 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index14 boards measured
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | GPT-5 Image Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 65.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 72.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 66.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 4.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 66.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| ARC-AGI | 5.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| SimpleBench | 27.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 3.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1384 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1364 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1393 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1215 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1248 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10 boards measured
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | GPT-5 Image Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 39.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | 87.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 87.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| AA Math Index | 34.7 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 34.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 38.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 6.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| MATH level 5 | 83.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1369 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1360 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index14 boards measured
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | GPT-5 Image Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 80.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 83.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 69.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 63.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 75.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 65.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 91.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 80.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 31.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| GeoBench | 72.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1382 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1379 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1399 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1369 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards measured
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | GPT-5 Image Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1039 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1000 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1080 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1104 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 850 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1026 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30 boards measured
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | GPT-5 Image Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 43.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 68.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| DTBench | 68.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMCA | 25.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 63.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1383 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1367 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1363 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1210 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1392 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1370 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1382 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1381 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1319 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1338 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1382 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1376 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1377 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1389 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1397 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1385 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1371 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1365 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1209 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1226 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1218 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1196 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1207 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1208 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1210 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
Image generationDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index3 boards measured
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 | GPT-5 Image Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: images | Not measured | 1184 | Only GPT-5 Image Mini measured |
| Design Arena: graphic design | Not measured | 1165 | Only GPT-5 Image Mini measured |
| Design Arena: logos | Not measured | 1209 | Only GPT-5 Image Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
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-5 Image Mini costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
GPT-4.1 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
GPT-4.1 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 | OpenAI GPT-4.1 | OpenAI GPT-5 Image Mini |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | OpenAI |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | April 14, 2025 | October 16, 2025 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 400K |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $2.50 |
| Output $/Mtok | $8.00 | $2.00 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.37 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is GPT-4.1 better than GPT-5 Image Mini for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick GPT-4.1 for a larger context window (1.05M against 400K tokens).
Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 or GPT-5 Image Mini?
GPT-4.1 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $8.00 per million output tokens; GPT-5 Image Mini costs $2.50 and $2.00. Cost per solved task is known for GPT-4.1 only.
Which has the bigger context window, GPT-4.1 or GPT-5 Image Mini?
GPT-4.1, with 1.05M tokens against 400K.
Has any benchmark tested both GPT-4.1 and GPT-5 Image Mini?
No benchmark has tested both yet. GPT-4.1 has results on Aider polyglot, SWE-bench Verified and SWE-bench Multimodal; GPT-5 Image Mini on Design Arena: images, Design Arena: graphic design and Design Arena: logos. Compare them on price and context instead. Data as of October 21, 2026.