GPT-4o-mini vs Grok 4

Win summary from our 12-test suite: Grok 4 wins 7 tests (creative problem solving 3 vs 2, constrained rewriting 4 vs 3, faithfulness 5 vs 3, strategic analysis 5 vs 2, long context 5 vs 4, persona consistency 5 vs 4, multilingual 5 vs 4). GPT-4o-mini wins safety calibration (4 vs 2). Four tests tie: structured output (4), tool calling (4), classification (4), and agentic planning (3). Details and impact: - Long_context: Grok 4 scores 5 vs GPT-4o-mini 4 and is tied for 1st in our ranking (rank 1 of 55, tied with 36). That plus Grok 4's 256k window vs GPT-4o-mini's 128k makes Grok 4 better for retrieval/analytics over 30k+ tokens. - Faithfulness & persona consistency: Grok 4 scores 5 vs GPT-4o-mini 3–4 and is tied for 1st in faithfulness and persona consistency; expect fewer hallucinations and more stable character maintenance on Grok 4. - Strategic_analysis & constrained rewriting: Grok 4's 5 vs GPT-4o-mini's 2–3 indicates stronger nuanced tradeoff reasoning and packing within strict character limits. - Safety_calibration: GPT-4o-mini wins 4 vs 2 (rank 6 of 55), so it more reliably refuses harmful requests while permitting legitimate ones in our tests. - Tool calling / structured outputs / classification: both score 4 and tie on rank (tool calling rank 18 of 54; classification tied for 1st), so both are competent at function selection, argument formatting, JSON schema adherence, and accurate routing. - Math: GPT-4o-mini reports 52.6% on MATH Level 5 and 6.9% on AIME 2025 (these external math items are from Epoch AI); Grok 4 has no model-level MATH/AIME entries in the payload. In short: Grok 4 wins the majority of capability benchmarks that matter for long-form, multilingual, and reasoning-heavy workflows; GPT-4o-mini wins safety calibration and is far cheaper per token.

Pricing per 1K tokens (mTok): GPT-4o-mini input $0.15 / output $0.60; Grok 4 input $3 / output $15. Assuming a 50/50 split of input/output tokens, monthly costs: - 1M tokens: GPT-4o-mini $375; Grok 4 $9,000. - 10M tokens: GPT-4o-mini $3,750; Grok 4 $90,000. - 100M tokens: GPT-4o-mini $37,500; Grok 4 $900,000. The payload shows a priceRatio of 0.04 — GPT-4o-mini runs at roughly 4% of Grok 4's list cost per token. Teams with high-throughput or tight cost budgets (consumer chat, large-scale content generation, high-rate APIs) should prefer GPT-4o-mini. Teams that need strong faithfulness, multilingual parity, or huge context windows may justify Grok 4 despite the steep cost increase.

Choose GPT-4o-mini if: - You need a low-cost, high-throughput model for consumer chat, bulk content generation, or large-scale APIs (cost example: $3,750/month for 10M tokens at a 50/50 I/O split). - Safety calibration (refusing harmful requests) is a priority in your app. - 128k context is sufficient. Choose Grok 4 if: - You require best-effort long-context retrieval (256k window), stronger faithfulness, multilingual parity, and superior strategic reasoning. - Your product tolerates much higher token costs (Grok 4 can cost ~24x–240x more per mTok depending on input vs output mix).