ModelRefs / Claude 3 Opus vs o4 Mini
Claude 3 Opus vs o4 Mini
Claude 3 Opus vs o4 Mini: side-by-side benchmarks, pricing, context windows, coding ability and deployment. Pick the right model for your stack.
Overview
Claude 3 Opus: Claude 3 Opus is Anthropic's February 2024 frontier model and the most capable of the original Claude 3 family, accepting text and image input across a 200,000-token context window. The claude-3-opus-20240229 snapshot was deprecated on 30 June 2025 and retired on Anthropic-operated platforms on 5 January 2026, with Claude Opus 4.8 named as its replacement.
o4 Mini: o4 Mini is OpenAI's efficient reasoning model, adding vision support to the mini reasoning tier for agentic tasks needing both image understanding and step-by-step logic at low cost per task. It is now deprecated: OpenAI gives the o4-mini-2025-04-16 snapshot and the o4-mini alias a shutdown date of 23 October 2026, with gpt-5.6-terra as the substitute.
Context window: Claude 3 Opus accepts up to 200,000 tokens, o4 Mini up to 200,000. Confirm the limit for your specific deployment channel before relying on it.
Claude 3 Opus vs o4 Mini at a glance
| Attribute | Claude 3 Opus | o4 Mini |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | OpenAI |
| Released | 2024-02-29 | 2025-04-16 |
| Context window | 200,000 tokens | 200,000 tokens |
| Input price | $15/M tokens | $1.1/M tokens |
| Output price | $75/M tokens | $4.4/M tokens |
| Licence | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Self-hostable | No, hosted only | No, hosted only |
| Modalities | text, vision | text, vision |
Benchmarks reported for both
| Benchmark | Claude 3 Opus | o4 Mini | Reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (accuracy) | 50.4 | 77.6 | 2024-03-04 |
Each row compares the same benchmark, the same reported metric, and the same task set. Scores are as published by their cited sources on the dates shown. Different runs still use different harnesses and prompts, so treat these as directional evidence rather than a head-to-head result.
Where they differ most
- Reasoning: Claude 3 Opus 38%, o4 Mini 79%. o4 Mini leads on this dimension.
Capability scores are ModelRefs' own derived signals, not vendor claims or benchmark results. Validate against your own workload before relying on them.
Continue your research
Use these connected ModelRefs sections to compare alternatives, inspect implementation paths, and review the evidence and governance boundaries relevant to Claude 3 Opus vs o4 Mini.
Frequently asked questions
Which is better, Claude 3 Opus or o4 Mini?
Claude 3 Opus and o4 Mini target different workloads — see the benchmark and pricing tables for a side-by-side answer.
Is Claude 3 Opus cheaper than o4 Mini?
Compare $0.0150 vs $0.00110 on this page.