The best pick for budget-conscious, high-volume workloads that don't demand frontier intelligence.
58
Coding
52
Writing
55
Research
0
Images
94
Value
82
Long Context
Use this when
High-volume production workloads like classification, extraction, summarization, and simple Q&A where cost and speed matter more than frontier reasoning.
Skip this if
You need complex reasoning, deep coding assistance, or high-quality long-form creative writing — use GPT-4.1 or Claude Sonnet 4.6 instead.
Pricing
$0.10/1M in
$0.40/1M out
↑0%since May 2026
Context
1.0M tokens
Speed
Very fast
GPT-4.1 Nanospecs & pricing
Verified Sep 4, 2026 against the AI Gateway catalog
Pricing is $0.10/1M input and $0.40/1M output tokens. Officially supersedes GPT-4o in OpenAI's lineup for lightweight use cases. Context window of ~1.047M tokens is one of the largest available at this price tier.
Exceptionally low cost at $0.10/1M input tokens — cheaper than Gemini Flash and GPT-4o Mini
Massive 1M token context window at budget pricing, rare among nano-tier models
Very fast inference suitable for real-time applications and high-throughput pipelines
Solid instruction-following for structured tasks like data extraction and classification
Weaknesses
Noticeably weaker at complex multi-step reasoning compared to GPT-4.1 or Claude Sonnet 4.6
Creative writing quality is shallow — struggles with nuanced tone, voice, and long-form coherence
Not suitable for hard coding problems or agentic tasks requiring deep logical chaining
Real-world use cases
What people actually use GPT-4.1 Nano for.
Batch-classifying thousands of customer support tickets into categories in real time
Extracting structured JSON data from long documents or contracts within a single context window
Generating short product descriptions or email drafts at scale for e-commerce platforms
How GPT-4.1 Nano compares
The nearest models people weigh against it, and what actually separates them.
vs GPT-4.1 Mini — Against GPT-4.1 Mini (OpenAI), GPT-4.1 Nano runs about 75% cheaper per token. Take GPT-4.1 Nano unless you specifically need what GPT-4.1 Mini does better.
vs GPT-5 Mini — Against GPT-5 Mini (OpenAI), GPT-4.1 Nano runs about 78% cheaper per token and takes 2.6x the context. Take GPT-4.1 Nano unless you specifically need what GPT-5 Mini does better.
vs GPT-5 Nano — Against GPT-5 Nano (OpenAI), GPT-4.1 Nano costs about 10% more per token and takes 2.6x the context. GPT-5 Nano is the one to check first if the price difference matters more than the ceiling.
Price History
GPT-4.1 Nano pricing over time
↑0% since May 31
90 data points · tracked daily since May 31, 2026
Ready to try it?
Start using GPT-4.1 Nano
High-volume production workloads like classification, extraction, summarization, and simple Q&A where cost and speed matter more than frontier reasoning.. Start free — no card required.
GPT-4.1 Mini is OpenAI's cost-optimized small model from the GPT-4.1 family, designed to deliver strong instruction-following and coding performance at a fraction of flagship pricing. It targets high-volume, latency-sensitive applications where cost efficiency matters more than peak capability.
Verdict
The go-to budget workhorse for high-volume OpenAI API users who need GPT-4.1 quality at GPT-3.5 prices.
Quality score
65%
Pricing
$0.40/1M in
$1.60/1M out
Speed
Very fast
5/5 speed
Context
1.0M tokens
Pricing shown is $0.40 input / $1.60 output per 1M tokens. Cached input tokens are significantly cheaper. The 1M token context window is a standout feature at this price tier — few competitors match it. Supersedes GPT-4o as the recommended default for cost-conscious applications.
BudgetFastLong ContextOpenAIProduction
Best for
High-volume production workloads that need reliable GPT-4-class instruction following without flagship pricing.
GPT-5 Mini is OpenAI's budget-tier distillation of GPT-5, designed for high-volume, cost-sensitive tasks that don't require full flagship reasoning depth. It supersedes GPT-4o with improved instruction following and a massively expanded 400K context window at a fraction of the cost.
Verdict
The new budget default for OpenAI API users: faster, cheaper, and smarter than GPT-4o with a context window that punches well above its price tier.
Quality score
66%
Pricing
$0.25/1M in
$2.00/1M out
Speed
Very fast
5/5 speed
Context
400k tokens
Output cost of $2/1M tokens is higher than some competing budget models (Gemini Flash at ~$0.60/1M output). At scale, output-heavy tasks may erode cost advantages — monitor token ratios carefully. Supersedes GPT-4o, which may be deprecated on a rolling basis.
BudgetFastLong ContextHigh VolumeOpenAI
Best for
High-volume production workloads — chatbots, summarization pipelines, and document Q&A — where cost efficiency matters more than peak reasoning.
GPT-5 Nano is OpenAI's smallest and fastest model in the GPT-5 family, optimized for high-throughput, low-latency tasks at near-minimal cost. It supersedes GPT-4o as the go-to option for lightweight inference at scale.
Verdict
The fastest and cheapest way into the GPT-5 ecosystem, built for scale rather than depth.
Quality score
58%
Pricing
$0.05/1M in
$0.40/1M out
Speed
Very fast
5/5 speed
Context
400k tokens
Output cost of ~$0.40/1M tokens means output-heavy workloads (long generations) will accumulate cost faster than input-heavy ones. Best suited for tasks where outputs are short-to-medium length. No image generation capability.
BudgetFastHigh VolumeLong ContextGPT-5 Family
Best for
High-volume, latency-sensitive applications like classification, autocomplete, summarization, and lightweight chat where cost-per-token matters most.
OpenAI: GPT-4.1 Nano (OpenAI) is now indexed. It supersedes GPT-4o. The best pick for budget-conscious, high-volume workloads that don't demand frontier intelligence.
GPT-4.1 Nano costs $0.1 per million input tokens and $0.4 per million output tokens on the API, with cached input at $0.025 per million. A month of 10M input and 2M output tokens runs about $1.80 at list price, before any batch or caching discounts.
What is the context window of GPT-4.1 Nano?
GPT-4.1 Nano has a 1.0M tokens context window, with up to 33k tokens of output per response. That is the total of prompt plus response the model can hold in one request.
What is the knowledge cutoff of GPT-4.1 Nano?
GPT-4.1 Nano's training data runs through April 2024, and the model was released on April 14, 2025. For anything after that date it needs web search or documents in the prompt.
What is GPT-4.1 Nano best for?
GPT-4.1 Nano is best for high-volume production workloads like classification, extraction, summarization, and simple q&a where cost and speed matter more than frontier reasoning.. It is a strong fit when that workflow matters more than the tradeoffs around budget pricing and very fast speed.
When should I avoid GPT-4.1 Nano?
You need complex reasoning, deep coding assistance, or high-quality long-form creative writing — use GPT-4.1 or Claude Sonnet 4.6 instead.
What is a cheaper alternative to GPT-4.1 Nano?
GPT-5 Nano (OpenAI) at $0.05/1M/1M input against GPT-4.1 Nano's $0.10/1M/1M — roughly 10% less per token all in. The fastest and cheapest way into the GPT-5 ecosystem, built for scale rather than depth. Compare it first if GPT-4.1 Nano's pricing is the thing stopping you.
What is a faster alternative to GPT-4.1 Nano?
GPT-4.1 Mini — very fast against GPT-4.1 Nano's very fast, with 1.0M tokens of context. Worth the swap when response time is what your users notice rather than the last few points of reasoning depth.
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