GPT-4.1 API Pricing
OpenAI · Mid-tier · Proprietary · released 2025-04. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-09-28.
GPT-4.1 has held the same list price since 2026-08-15 and is the 80th cheapest of 108 Mid-tier models. None of its 2 hosts undercuts the price quoted here. It is rated a stable release but does not meet all four criteria of the FinOps Friendly badge.
- Input: $2.00 per 1M tokens
- Output: $8.00 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (input/output): $1.00 / $4.00
- Prompt-cache read: $0.50
- Context window: 1M
- Arena ELO: 1415 (as of 2026-09-25)
- Available on: Direct API, Azure AI Foundry, OpenRouter (curated by hand, verify with the provider)
GPT-4.1 market position
On blended price ($6.20 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 24% of Mid-tier models: 80th cheapest of 108, tied with 2 others. Across every category it is cheaper than 20% of priced text models in the catalogue: 222nd cheapest of 281, tied with 2 others. Its Arena ELO of 1415 ranks 45th of the 68 models that carry one, above 34% of them.
GPT-4.1 licence, size and capabilities
GPT-4.1 is recorded here as proprietary: access is through an API, priced by the token. Its parameter count is not published. Listed capabilities: Text, Vision, Code, Agents. Filling its 1M context window once costs $2.00 in input tokens at list price.
Monthly cost at 100K requests, by business use case
From the after-discounts figure (prompt caching on the cached input share, batch API for async workloads, only where the provider publishes those rates), which assumes you implement both, to the list price. One figure means no discount is published.
| Use case | Tokens (in/out) | Monthly (after discounts – list) |
|---|---|---|
| Support Ticket | 1,500 / 500 | $565 – $700 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $830 – $1.0K |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $1.4K – $3.0K |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $1.9K |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $2.0K – $2.2K |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $368 – $780 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $470 – $960 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $3.0K – $3.6K |
GPT-4.1 pricing by host
A host is a company that runs the model and sells it by the token — the lab that made it, a cloud platform like Amazon Bedrock, Azure or Vertex, or an independent provider. One model, several sellers, and often several prices. This model is sold by 2 different hosts. The price quoted above is the one we publish so that models stay comparable; it is not necessarily the cheapest way to buy this model. List prices as published on 2026-09-28 via OpenRouter — negotiated rates, committed-use discounts and provisioned capacity are not shown.
The price we publish is already the cheapest of the 2 hosts: Azure at $2.00 input / $8.00 output per 1M tokens. All of them charge within 10% of one another.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|
| Azure (the price shown above) | $2.00 | $8.00 |
| OpenAI (the price shown above) | $2.00 | $8.00 |
GPT-4.1 price history
GPT-4.1 has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $2.00 input / $8.00 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-09-28 snapshot.
Alternatives to GPT-4.1
- Next cheaper Mid-tier model: Pareto (unbiased) at $6.00 blended, 3% less.
- Next more expensive: Gemini 3.5 Flash (Google) at $6.75 blended, 9% more.
The nearest Mid-tier models on Arena ELO, each with its blended price and score difference against GPT-4.1.
- Qwen3.5-122B-A10B (Alibaba) — $0.26 in / $2.08 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1416: 75% cheaper, 1 ELO point higher
- Claude Haiku 4.5 (Anthropic) — $1.00 in / $5.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1414: 39% cheaper, 1 ELO point lower
- Mistral Large (Mistral) — $2.00 in / $6.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1413: 23% cheaper, 2 ELO points lower
- Kimi K2 0711 (Moonshot) — $0.57 in / $2.30 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1419: 71% cheaper, 4 ELO points higher
- Cheapest within 15 Arena points: DeepSeek V3.2 (DeepSeek), 94% cheaper, 10 ELO points higher, out of 8 models in that band.
- Highest Arena ELO within 20% of this price: Gemini 3.5 Flash (Google), 9% more expensive, 62 ELO points higher, out of 5 models in that price band.
Common questions about GPT-4.1 pricing
- How much does GPT-4.1 cost?
- GPT-4.1 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $8.00 per million output tokens on the API.
- Does GPT-4.1 offer batch or cached pricing?
- Yes. Batch API pricing is $1.00/M input and $4.00/M output. Prompt-cache reads cost $0.50/M.
- What would GPT-4.1 cost per month?
- For a support-ticket workload (1,500 input + 500 output tokens per request) at 100K requests/month, GPT-4.1 costs about $700 at list prices.
- Has the price of GPT-4.1 changed?
- GPT-4.1 has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $2.00 input / $8.00 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-09-28 snapshot.
These are list prices: real cost also depends on caching, batching, negotiated discounts, marketplace agreements, and existing contracts. Get a FinOps review from OptimNow or compare all models.
Build the business case for GPT-4.1 in the AI ROI Calculator: add your business value on top of these costs to get ROI, break-even and payback.
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