A solid, practical upgrade over GPT-4o that hits the sweet spot between capability and cost — but not the best in any single category.
85
Coding
78
Writing
82
Research
20
Images
55
Value
84
Long Context
Use this when
Teams needing reliable, high-quality outputs across coding, writing, and analysis without paying premium GPT-5 prices.
Skip this if
You need the highest-tier reasoning (use o3), low-cost bulk generation (use GPT-4o mini or Claude Haiku), or native image output.
Pricing
$1.25/1M in
$10.00/1M out
→0%since May 2026
Context
400k tokens
Speed
Balanced
Pricing structure heavily favors input-heavy use cases like RAG and retrieval. The $10/1M output cost makes it expensive for long-form generation at scale. Context window of 400K is competitive but not best-in-class against Gemini 3.1 Pro's 1M+ window.
400K context window handles large codebases, lengthy documents, and multi-document research in a single pass
Strong instruction-following and structured output generation, outperforming GPT-4o on complex multi-step tasks
Asymmetric pricing ($1.25 input vs $10 output) rewards prompt-heavy workflows like RAG and document analysis
Reliable tool use and function calling, making it well-suited for agentic pipelines
Weaknesses
Output cost of $10/1M tokens is steep for high-volume generation tasks — Claude Sonnet 4.6 is cheaper for output-heavy workloads
No native image generation; multimodal input only, so it can't compete with Gemini 3.1 Pro on full multimodal output
Not a dedicated reasoning model — falls short of o3 or Gemini 3.1 Pro on deep mathematical or logical benchmarks
Real-world use cases
What people actually use GPT-5.1 for.
Analyzing a 300-page legal contract and extracting key obligations and risk clauses in a single prompt
Building an agentic coding assistant that iterates on a full repository with tool calls and structured JSON outputs
Synthesizing findings from 20+ research papers loaded into context for a literature review draft
How GPT-5.1 compares
The nearest models people weigh against it, and what actually separates them.
vs GPT-4 Turbo — Against GPT-4 Turbo (OpenAI), GPT-5.1 runs about 72% cheaper per token and takes 3.1x the context. Take GPT-5.1 unless you specifically need what GPT-4 Turbo does better.
vs GPT-4 Turbo (older v1106) — Against GPT-4 Turbo (older v1106) (OpenAI), GPT-5.1 runs about 72% cheaper per token and takes 3.1x the context. Take GPT-5.1 unless you specifically need what GPT-4 Turbo (older v1106) does better.
vs GPT-4 Turbo Preview — Against GPT-4 Turbo Preview (OpenAI), GPT-5.1 runs about 72% cheaper per token and takes 3.1x the context. Take GPT-5.1 unless you specifically need what GPT-4 Turbo Preview does better.
Price History
GPT-5.1 pricing over time
→0% since May 30
90 data points · tracked daily since May 30, 2026
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Start using GPT-5.1
Teams needing reliable, high-quality outputs across coding, writing, and analysis without paying premium GPT-5 prices.. Start free — no card required.
GPT-4 Turbo is OpenAI's high-capability flagship model featuring a 128K context window, trained on data up to April 2024. It delivers strong reasoning, coding, and instruction-following across complex tasks.
Verdict
A capable but aging flagship that has been outpaced by cheaper, faster successors in OpenAI's own lineup.
Quality score
75%
Pricing
$10.00/1M in
$30.00/1M out
Speed
Balanced
3/5 speed
Context
128k tokens
GPT-4 Turbo is available via the OpenAI API. It has largely been succeeded by GPT-4o, which is faster, supports vision natively, and is cheaper. Organizations should evaluate whether migrating to GPT-4o or o3 makes more sense before building new workflows on this model.
GPT-4 Turbo (v1106) is an older snapshot of OpenAI's flagship GPT-4 Turbo model released in November 2023, offering a 128K context window with strong general-purpose reasoning and instruction-following capabilities. It predates later GPT-4 Turbo updates and GPT-4o, making it a legacy choice for workflows locked to this specific version.
Verdict
A reliable but outdated GPT-4 snapshot that only makes sense when version pinning is a hard requirement.
Quality score
66%
Pricing
$10.00/1M in
$30.00/1M out
Speed
Balanced
3/5 speed
Context
128k tokens
This is a pinned model snapshot (v1106) and will not receive capability updates. OpenAI may deprecate older snapshots over time. Knowledge cutoff is April 2023. Not recommended for new deployments given the superior cost-performance of GPT-4o and GPT-4.1.
Legacy128K ContextPinned SnapshotGPT-4Premium
Best for
Teams requiring a pinned, stable version of GPT-4 Turbo for reproducible outputs in long-document analysis or complex instruction pipelines.
GPT-4 Turbo Preview is an early access version of GPT-4 Turbo, OpenAI's then-flagship model featuring a 128K context window and knowledge improvements over the original GPT-4. It was designed to deliver GPT-4-class reasoning at reduced cost compared to the original GPT-4.
Verdict
A once-capable flagship now overshadowed by faster, cheaper, and smarter successors.
Quality score
67%
Pricing
$10.00/1M in
$30.00/1M out
Speed
Balanced
3/5 speed
Context
128k tokens
This is a 'preview' variant that OpenAI has largely deprecated in favor of gpt-4-turbo and gpt-4o. The endpoint may be retired or redirected by OpenAI without notice. Check the OpenAI model deprecation schedule before building production applications on this model.
GPT-4Long ContextLegacyPremiumOpenAI
Best for
Complex multi-step reasoning, long-document analysis, and professional writing tasks requiring strong instruction-following.
OpenAI: GPT-5.1 (OpenAI) is now indexed. It supersedes GPT-4o. A solid, practical upgrade over GPT-4o that hits the sweet spot between capability and cost — but not the best in any single category.
GPT-5.1 costs $1.25 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens on the API. A month of 10M input and 2M output tokens runs about $32.50 at list price, before any batch or caching discounts.
What is GPT-5.1 best for?
GPT-5.1 is best for teams needing reliable, high-quality outputs across coding, writing, and analysis without paying premium gpt-5 prices.. It is a strong fit when that workflow matters more than the tradeoffs around balanced pricing and balanced speed.
When should I avoid GPT-5.1?
You need the highest-tier reasoning (use o3), low-cost bulk generation (use GPT-4o mini or Claude Haiku), or native image output.
What is a cheaper alternative to GPT-5.1?
GPT-5.1-Codex-Max (OpenAI) at $1.25/1M/1M input against GPT-5.1's $1.25/1M/1M. The strongest choice for serious software engineering work, provided you can absorb the output-side pricing. Compare it first if GPT-5.1's pricing is the thing stopping you.
What is a faster alternative to GPT-5.1?
GPT-4 Turbo — balanced against GPT-5.1's balanced, with 128k 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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