GPT-5 Mini vs Grok Code Fast 1

Summary of head-to-head results in our 12-test suite (scores shown are our 1–5 internal ratings unless noted):

• Wins for GPT-5 Mini (9 categories): structured output 5 vs 4 (Mini tied for 1st with 24 others; meaning best-in-class JSON/schema compliance for APIs), long context 5 vs 4 (Mini tied for 1st with 36 others; better for 30K+ token retrieval), strategic analysis 5 vs 3 (Mini tied for 1st with 25 others; stronger nuanced tradeoff reasoning), faithfulness 5 vs 4 (Mini tied for 1st with 32 others; fewer hallucinations), persona consistency 5 vs 4 (tied for 1st with 36; robust character maintenance), constrained rewriting 4 vs 3 (rank 6 of 53), creative problem solving 4 vs 3 (rank 9 of 54), safety calibration 3 vs 2 (rank 10 of 55), multilingual 5 vs 4 (tied for 1st with 34 others).
• Wins for Grok Code Fast 1 (2 categories): tool calling 4 vs 3 (Grok rank 18 of 54 vs Mini rank 47 of 54 — substantial advantage in function selection, argument accuracy and sequencing) and agentic planning 5 vs 4 (Grok tied for 1st with 14 others — better goal decomposition and recovery for agents).
• Tie: classification 4 vs 4 (both tied for 1st with 29 others). Practical meaning: GPT-5 Mini is the superior choice when you need strict schema outputs, long-context document work, math/strategic reasoning and faithful restatement. Grok Code Fast 1 is the practical pick for agentic coding pipelines, tool-integrated workflows, and lower per-token cost. Additional external measures: beyond our internal tests, GPT-5 Mini scores 64.7% on SWE-bench Verified, 97.8% on Math Level 5, and 86.7% on AIME 2025 (on SWE-bench Verified / Math Level 5 / AIME 2025 respectively, according to Epoch AI), which support Mini’s strength on coding/math-style problems; Grok has no external Epoch AI scores in the payload.

Pricing per 1,000 output tokens: GPT-5 Mini = $2.00, Grok Code Fast 1 = $1.50 (price ratio 1.333). Output-only monthly cost: 1M tokens = $2,000 (Mini) vs $1,500 (Grok) — $500 difference; 10M = $20,000 vs $15,000 — $5,000 difference; 100M = $200,000 vs $150,000 — $50,000 difference. If you include input tokens (per 1,000: Mini $0.25, Grok $0.20) and assume a 50/50 input/output split, total 1M-token cost is $1,125 (Mini) vs $850 (Grok) — $275 gap; at 100M that gap is $27,500. Who should care: startups and apps at millions of tokens/month where tens of thousands of dollars matter should prefer Grok for lower unit cost; teams that need top-tier structured output, long-context handling, or higher faithfulness may find GPT-5 Mini’s quality worth the ~33% premium on output tokens.

Choose GPT-5 Mini if you need high-fidelity structured outputs (5/5 structured output), robust long-document retrieval (5/5 long context), stronger faithfulness and strategic reasoning, and you can accept ~33% higher output cost. Choose Grok Code Fast 1 if you prioritize cheaper inference and better agentic coding/tool-calling (tool calling 4 vs 3; agentic planning 5 vs 4), or if you run high-volume, tool-driven developer workflows where the per-token savings accumulate.