ModelRefs / o3 vs o4 Mini
o3 vs o4 Mini
o3 vs o4 Mini: side-by-side benchmarks, pricing, context windows, coding ability and deployment. Pick the right model for your stack.
Overview
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.
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 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 vs o4 Mini at a glance
| Attribute | o3 | o4 Mini |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | OpenAI |
| Released | 2025-04-16 | 2025-04-16 |
| Context window | 200,000 tokens | 200,000 tokens |
| Input price | $10/M tokens | $1.1/M tokens |
| Output price | $40/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 | o3 | o4 Mini | Reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (accuracy) | 82.8 | 77.6 | Date not published |
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: o3 13%, o4 Mini 63%. o4 Mini leads on this dimension.
- Reasoning: o3 86%, o4 Mini 79%. 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 o3 vs o4 Mini.
Frequently asked questions
Which is better, o3 or o4 Mini?
o3 and o4 Mini target different workloads — see the benchmark and pricing tables for a side-by-side answer.
Is o3 cheaper than o4 Mini?
Compare $0.0100 vs $0.00110 on this page.