o4 Mini API Pricing
OpenAI · Mid-tier · Proprietary · released 2025-04. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-09-28.
Deprecated. The vendor has announced retirement of this model's API · shutdown 2026-10-23 · suggested replacement: GPT-5.6 Terra. It still carries a price because resellers still serve it; treat it as a model to migrate off, not one to start on.
o4 Mini has held the same list price since 2026-08-15 and is the 60th cheapest of 108 Mid-tier models. Only one host, OpenAI, sells it, so there is no second price to shop. The vendor has announced its retirement, so it is a model to migrate off rather than start on.
- Input: $1.10 per 1M tokens
- Output: $4.40 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (input/output): $0.55 / $2.20
- Prompt-cache read: $0.28
- Context window: 200K
- Arena ELO: 1391 (as of 2026-09-25)
- Available on: Direct API, Azure AI Foundry, OpenRouter (curated by hand, verify with the provider)
o4 Mini market position
On blended price ($3.41 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 42% of Mid-tier models: 60th cheapest of 108, tied with 3 others. Across every category it is cheaper than 27% of priced text models in the catalogue: 202nd cheapest of 281, tied with 3 others. Its Arena ELO of 1391 ranks 52nd of the 68 models that carry one, tied with 2 others, above 21% of them.
o4 Mini licence, size and capabilities
o4 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, Reasoning, Code, Agents. Filling its 200K context window once costs $0.22 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 | $311 – $385 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $457 – $572 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $787 – $1.6K |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $1.0K – $1.1K |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $1.1K – $1.2K |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $202 – $429 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $259 – $528 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $1.6K – $2.0K |
o4 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 1 host. 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.
OpenAI is the only host with a published rate, $1.10 input / $4.40 output per 1M tokens, which is the price shown on this page.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI (the price shown above) | $1.10 | $4.40 |
o4 Mini price history
o4 Mini has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $1.10 input / $4.40 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 o4 Mini
- Next cheaper Mid-tier model: GPT-5.4 Mini (OpenAI) at $3.38 blended, 1% less.
- Next more expensive: GLM 5.3 (Zhipu) at $3.50 blended, 3% more.
The nearest Mid-tier models on Arena ELO, each with its blended price and score difference against o4 Mini.
- GPT-5 Mini (OpenAI) — $0.25 in / $2.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1390: 57% cheaper, 1 ELO point lower
- R1 (DeepSeek) — $0.70 in / $2.50 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1398: 43% cheaper, 7 ELO points higher
- Mistral Large (Mistral) — $2.00 in / $6.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1413: 41% more expensive, 22 ELO points higher
- Claude Haiku 4.5 (Anthropic) — $1.00 in / $5.00 out per 1M, Arena ELO 1414: 11% more expensive, 23 ELO points higher
- Cheapest within 15 Arena points: MiniMax M2.5 (MiniMax), 75% cheaper, same Arena ELO, out of 8 models in that band.
- Highest Arena ELO within 20% of this price: Gemini 3.7 Flash (Google), 16% cheaper, 97 ELO points higher, out of 8 models in that price band.
Common questions about o4 Mini pricing
- How much does o4 Mini cost?
- o4 Mini costs $1.10 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens on the API.
- Does o4 Mini offer batch or cached pricing?
- Yes. Batch API pricing is $0.55/M input and $2.20/M output. Prompt-cache reads cost $0.28/M.
- What would o4 Mini cost per month?
- For a support-ticket workload (1,500 input + 500 output tokens per request) at 100K requests/month, o4 Mini costs about $385 at list prices.
- Has the price of o4 Mini changed?
- o4 Mini has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $1.10 input / $4.40 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 o4 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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