ModelRefs / GPT-4o vs o3
GPT-4o vs o3
GPT-4o vs o3: side-by-side benchmarks, pricing, context windows, coding ability and deployment. Pick the right model for your stack.
Overview
GPT-4o: GPT-4o is OpenAI's May 2024 multimodal flagship, accepting text and image input across a 128,000-token context window with a 16,384-token maximum output and an October 2023 knowledge cutoff. OpenAI describes it as its most capable model outside the o-series reasoning line, and serves it through dated snapshots with gpt-4o-2024-08-06 as the default. The family is now deprecated on two schedules: gpt-4o-2024-08-06 and gpt-4o-2024-11-20 shut down on 14 January 2027 with gpt-6-luna as the replacement, and the original gpt-4o-2024-05-13 snapshot on 23 October 2026 with gpt-5.6-sol.
o3: o3 is OpenAI's April 2025 reasoning model, applying deliberate chain-of-thought computation at inference time to mathematics, science and competitive programming tasks, and the release that brought OpenAI's scalable test-time compute approach to its production API. OpenAI has since deprecated it, scheduling the o3-2025-04-16 snapshot to shut down on 11 December 2026 with gpt-5.6-sol as the replacement.
Context window: GPT-4o accepts up to 128,000 tokens, o3 up to 200,000. Confirm the limit for your specific deployment channel before relying on it.
GPT-4o vs o3 at a glance
| Attribute | GPT-4o | o3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | OpenAI |
| Released | 2024-05-13 | 2025-04-16 |
| Context window | 128,000 tokens | 200,000 tokens |
| Input price | $2.5/M tokens | $10/M tokens |
| Output price | $10/M tokens | $40/M tokens |
| Licence | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Self-hostable | No, hosted only | No, hosted only |
| Modalities | text, vision, audio | text, vision |
Benchmarks reported for both
| Benchmark | GPT-4o | o3 | Reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (accuracy) | 49.9 | 82.8 | 2024-11-21 |
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
- Cost Efficiency: GPT-4o 46%, o3 13%. GPT-4o leads on this dimension.
- Reasoning: GPT-4o 61%, o3 86%. o3 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 GPT-4o vs o3.
Frequently asked questions
Which is better, GPT-4o or o3?
GPT-4o and o3 target different workloads — see the benchmark and pricing tables for a side-by-side answer.
Is GPT-4o cheaper than o3?
Compare $0.00250 vs $0.0100 on this page.