GPT-4.1 Mini vs Llama 4 Maverick

Summary of wins in our 12-test suite: GPT-4.1 Mini wins strategic analysis (4 vs 2), constrained rewriting (4 vs 3), tool calling (4; Llama hit a 429 rate limit during our tool calling run), long context (5 vs 4) agentic planning (4 vs 3) and multilingual (5 vs 4). There are ties on structured output (both 4), creative problem solving (3), faithfulness (4), classification (3), safety calibration (2) and persona consistency (both 5). What this means in practice: - long context: GPT-4.1 Mini scored 5/5 and is tied for 1st on long context ("tied for 1st with 36 other models out of 55 tested"); Llama 4 Maverick scored 4/5 and ranks 38 of 55, so GPT-4.1 Mini is measurably stronger for tasks requiring retrieval or reasoning over 30K+ tokens. - multilingual: GPT-4.1 Mini scored 5/5 (tied for 1st with 34 others); Llama scored 4/5 (rank 36 of 55), so non-English parity favors GPT-4.1 Mini. - tool calling: GPT-4.1 Mini scored 4/5 and ranks 18 of 54; Llama’s tool calling test encountered a transient 429 rate limit on OpenRouter (payload quirk), so our tool-calling result for Llama is inconclusive but trended lower. - strategic analysis & constrained rewriting: GPT-4.1 Mini’s 4/5 vs Llama’s 2/5 and 3/5 respectively indicate clearer advantage on nuanced tradeoffs and strict-format rewrites. - shared strengths: both models tie on persona consistency (5) and faithfulness (4), meaning both hold character and stick to sources comparably in our runs. Additional external math signals: GPT-4.1 Mini scored 87.3% on MATH Level 5 (Epoch AI) and 44.7% on AIME 2025 (Epoch AI) in our data; Llama 4 Maverick has no MATH/AIME scores in this payload.

Using the payload costs (input + output per mTok): GPT-4.1 Mini charges $0.40 + $1.60 = $2.00 per mTok; Llama 4 Maverick charges $0.15 + $0.60 = $0.75 per mTok. At 1M tokens/month that’s $2.00 vs $0.75; at 10M tokens it’s $20.00 vs $7.50; at 100M tokens it’s $200.00 vs $75.00. The price ratio is 2.6667x (priceRatio in payload). Teams with heavy monthly volume (10M+ tokens) or tight margins should prioritize Llama 4 Maverick to save tens to hundreds of dollars monthly; teams that need long-context, multilingual or tool-calling advantages may justify GPT-4.1 Mini’s higher cost.

Choose GPT-4.1 Mini if you need: long-context retrieval or generation (5/5, tied for 1st), robust multilingual output (5/5, tied for 1st), stronger tool calling (4/5) and better strategic analysis (4/5) and you can absorb ~2.67x higher token costs. Choose Llama 4 Maverick if you need: the lowest token cost ($0.75 combined per mTok vs $2.00 combined), comparable persona consistency and faithfulness, and you’re optimizing for price-sensitive production workloads or prototypes where absolute long-context or strategic edge is not required.