ModelRefs / o3 Pro vs o4 Mini
o3 Pro vs o4 Mini
o3 Pro vs o4 Mini: side-by-side benchmarks, pricing, context windows, coding ability and deployment. Pick the right model for your stack.
Overview
o3 Pro: o3 Pro is OpenAI's highest-capability reasoning model, applying extended compute at inference time to solve complex scientific, mathematical, and programming problems. It achieved the highest published scores on ARC-AGI-2 and competitive programming benchmarks at its June 2025 release.
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: o3 Pro accepts up to 200,000 tokens, o4 Mini up to 200,000. Confirm the limit for your specific deployment channel before relying on it.
o3 Pro vs o4 Mini at a glance
| Attribute | o3 Pro | o4 Mini |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | OpenAI |
| Released | 2025-06-10 | 2025-04-16 |
| Context window | 200,000 tokens | 200,000 tokens |
| Input price | $20/M tokens | $1.1/M tokens |
| Output price | $80/M tokens | $4.4/M tokens |
| Licence | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Self-hostable | No, hosted only | No, hosted only |
| Modalities | text, vision | text, vision |
Where they differ most
- Reasoning: o3 Pro 32%, 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 o3 Pro vs o4 Mini.
Frequently asked questions
Which is better, o3 Pro or o4 Mini?
o3 Pro and o4 Mini target different workloads — see the benchmark and pricing tables for a side-by-side answer.
Is o3 Pro cheaper than o4 Mini?
Compare $0.0200 vs $0.00110 on this page.