GPT-5 Mini vs Grok 4

Our 12-test suite: GPT-5 Mini wins 4 tests, Grok 4 wins 1, and they tie on 7 (win/loss/tie lists are from our testing). Detailed comparison: - Structured output: GPT-5 Mini 5 vs Grok 4 4 — GPT-5 Mini tied for 1st (tied with 24 others) on JSON/schema compliance, making it the stronger choice for strict format adherence. - Creative problem solving: GPT-5 Mini 4 vs Grok 4 3 — GPT-5 Mini ranks 9th of 54, offering more non-obvious, feasible ideas in our tests. - Safety calibration: GPT-5 Mini 3 vs Grok 4 2 — GPT-5 Mini ranked 10 of 55, meaning it better refuses harmful prompts while permitting legitimate ones in our testing. - Agentic planning: GPT-5 Mini 4 vs Grok 4 3 — GPT-5 Mini ranked 16 of 54, so it produced stronger goal decomposition and failure-recovery behavior. - Tool calling: GPT-5 Mini 3 vs Grok 4 4 — Grok 4 wins here and ranks 18 of 54 versus GPT-5 Mini’s rank 47; Grok 4 is measurably better at function selection, argument accuracy, and sequencing in our tests. - Ties (both models): strategic analysis (5), constrained rewriting (4), faithfulness (5), classification (4), long context (5), persona consistency (5), multilingual (5) — in these areas both models performed equivalently on our suite. External benchmarks: GPT-5 Mini scores 64.7% on SWE-bench Verified (Epoch AI), 97.8% on MATH Level 5, and 86.7% on AIME 2025 (these three are Epoch AI results provided in the payload); Grok 4 has no SWE-bench/MATH/AIME scores in the payload. Practical meaning: pick GPT-5 Mini when schema compliance, long-context retrieval (400k window), math/analysis and lower cost matter; pick Grok 4 if you need stronger, parallel tool-calling behavior and are prepared to pay ~7.5x–9x more per token for output-heavy workloads.

Pricing (per mTok): GPT-5 Mini charges $0.25 input / $2 output; Grok 4 charges $3 input / $15 output. Assuming a 50/50 split of input vs output tokens: at 1,000,000 tokens/month (500k input + 500k output) GPT-5 Mini costs $1,125 ($125 input + $1,000 output) vs Grok 4 $9,000 ($1,500 + $7,500). At 10M tokens/month those totals scale to $11,250 vs $90,000; at 100M tokens/month $112,500 vs $900,000. The priceRatio in the payload is ~0.1333, i.e., GPT-5 Mini costs about 13.3% of Grok 4 for identical token mixes. High-volume deployments, startups, or cost-sensitive products should care about this gap; teams that need Grok 4’s specific tool-calling behavior must budget accordingly.

Choose GPT-5 Mini if: - You need strict structured outputs (5/5 structured output; tied for 1st). - You need long contexts—400k tokens vs Grok 4’s 256k. - You run high-volume or cost-sensitive services (see pricing: $0.25/$2 per mTok). - You need strong math and problem-solving (MATH Level 5 97.8%, AIME 86.7%, SWE-bench 64.7% per payload/Epoch AI). Choose Grok 4 if: - Your priority is accurate tool calling (Grok 4 tool calling 4 vs GPT-5 Mini 3; Grok 4 ranks 18 of 54 on tool calling). - You accept substantially higher costs ($3/$15 per mTok) for that tool-calling edge. If both concerns matter, prototype both—GPT-5 Mini minimizes cost and excels at structured outputs; Grok 4 is the pick when tool orchestration accuracy is the single bottleneck.