GPT-4.1 Nano vs Grok Code Fast 1

We ran a 12-test suite and compare results below (scores are our internal 1–5 proxies except where noted). Wins, ties and ranks come from those tests. A = GPT‑4.1 Nano, B = Grok Code Fast 1. 1) Structured output: A 5 vs B 4 — A wins; A is tied for 1st with 24 others ("tied for 1st with 24 other models out of 54 tested"). This means GPT‑4.1 Nano is stronger when strict JSON/schema compliance matters. 2) Constrained rewriting: A 4 vs B 3 — A wins; A ranks 6 of 53, so better for tight-length compression and hard character budgets. 3) Faithfulness: A 5 vs B 4 — A wins; A is tied for 1st with 32 others, so GPT‑4.1 Nano is less prone to stray from source material in our tests. 4) Agentic planning: A 4 vs B 5 — B wins; B is tied for 1st with 14 others, making Grok the better choice for goal decomposition and failure recovery (agentic coding flows). 5) Classification: A 3 vs B 4 — B wins; B is tied for 1st with 29 others, so Grok is superior for routing and categorization tasks in our benchmarks. 6) Strategic analysis: A 2 vs B 3 — B wins; B ranks 36 of 54 vs A’s 44 of 54, so Grok produces better nuanced tradeoff reasoning in our tests. 7) Creative problem solving: A 2 vs B 3 — B wins; Grok shows more non-obvious feasible ideas in our suite. 8–12) Ties: tool calling (4/4), long context (4/4), safety calibration (2/2), persona consistency (4/4), multilingual (4/4) — both models matched on these tasks in our tests. Context notes: GPT‑4.1 Nano posts a 70% on MATH Level 5 and 28.9% on AIME 2025 (Epoch AI) in the payload — useful if you care about external math benchmarks (these are Epoch AI results). Rankings indicate GPT‑4.1 Nano is top-tier for structured output and faithfulness, while Grok leads on agentic planning and classification — choose depending on whether your real task prioritizes schema fidelity or agentic coding/classification quality.

Pricing per thousand tokens (mTok) in the payload: GPT‑4.1 Nano charges $0.10 input + $0.40 output = $0.50/mTok total. Grok Code Fast 1 charges $0.20 input + $1.50 output = $1.70/mTok total. At 1M tokens/month (1,000 mTok) that’s: GPT‑4.1 Nano = $500/month, Grok = $1,700/month. At 10M tokens: GPT = $5,000, Grok = $17,000. At 100M tokens: GPT = $50,000, Grok = $170,000. The ~3.4x per-token cost gap matters for high-volume products (SaaS, large-scale assistants, batch inference). Teams shipping prototypes, low-latency chatbots, or heavy batch workloads will see direct P&L impact and should prefer GPT‑4.1 Nano for cost-efficiency; teams that need the specific wins Grok delivers (agentic planning, classification, visible reasoning traces) may justify the higher spend.

Choose GPT‑4.1 Nano if: you need strict JSON/schema adherence, reliable faithfulness, and the lowest per-token cost (e.g., webhooks, API services, schema-driven responses, constrained rewriting, heavy-volume usage where $/token matters). Choose Grok Code Fast 1 if: you build agentic coding workflows, need visible reasoning traces, or require stronger classification and planning abilities in prompts and tool-driven agents and can absorb a higher $/token cost.