GPT-4o-mini API Pricing
OpenAI · Budget · Proprietary · released 2024-07. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-09-28.
GPT-4o-mini has held the same list price since 2026-08-15 and is the 75th cheapest of 142 Budget 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: $0.15 per 1M tokens
- Output: $0.60 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (input/output): $0.07 / $0.30
- Prompt-cache read: $0.07
- Context window: 128K
- Arena ELO: 1318 (as of 2026-09-25)
- Available on: Direct API, Azure AI Foundry, OpenRouter (curated by hand, verify with the provider)
GPT-4o-mini market position
On blended price ($0.465 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 45% of Budget models: 75th cheapest of 142, tied with 3 others. Across every category it is cheaper than 73% of priced text models in the catalogue: 75th cheapest of 281, tied with 3 others. Its Arena ELO of 1318 ranks 63rd of the 68 models that carry one, tied with one other, above 6% of them.
GPT-4o-mini licence, size and capabilities
GPT-4o-mini 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 128K context window once costs $0.02 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 | $46 – $53 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $68 – $78 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $111 – $222 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $142 – $146 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $154 – $165 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $29 – $59 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $36 – $72 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $239 – $270 |
GPT-4o-mini 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 $0.15 input / $0.60 output per 1M tokens. All of them charge within 10% of one another.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|
| Azure (the price shown above) | $0.15 | $0.60 |
| OpenAI (the price shown above) | $0.15 | $0.60 |
GPT-4o-mini price history
GPT-4o-mini has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.15 input / $0.60 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-4o-mini
- Next cheaper Budget model: Hy3 (Tencent) at $0.409 blended, 12% less.
- Next more expensive: Saba (Mistral) at $0.480 blended, 3% more.
The nearest Budget models on Arena ELO, each with its blended price and score difference against GPT-4o-mini.
- Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (Meta) — $0.10 in / $0.32 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1318: 45% cheaper, same Arena ELO
- Llama 4 Scout (Meta) — $0.10 in / $0.30 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1322: 48% cheaper, 4 ELO points higher
- Llama 4 Maverick (Meta) — $0.19 in / $0.65 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1327: 10% more expensive, 9 ELO points higher
- Llama 3.1 70B Instruct (Meta) — $0.40 in / $0.40 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1293: 14% cheaper, 25 ELO points lower
- Cheapest within 15 Arena points: Llama 4 Scout (Meta), 48% cheaper, 4 ELO points higher, out of 5 models in that band.
- Highest Arena ELO within 20% of this price: GLM 5.3 Flash (Zhipu), 15% cheaper, 156 ELO points higher, out of 5 models in that price band.
Common questions about GPT-4o-mini pricing
- How much does GPT-4o-mini cost?
- GPT-4o-mini costs $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens on the API.
- Does GPT-4o-mini offer batch or cached pricing?
- Yes. Batch API pricing is $0.07/M input and $0.30/M output. Prompt-cache reads cost $0.07/M.
- What would GPT-4o-mini cost per month?
- For a support-ticket workload (1,500 input + 500 output tokens per request) at 100K requests/month, GPT-4o-mini costs about $53 at list prices.
- Has the price of GPT-4o-mini changed?
- GPT-4o-mini has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.15 input / $0.60 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-4o-mini 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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