Claude Opus 4.5 Vision vs GPT-4.1 Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Opus 4.5 Vision and GPT-4.1 Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Opus 4.5 Vision has the stronger average benchmark score; GPT-4.1 Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Opus 4.5 Vision
Claude Opus 4.5 Vision is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $17.70 per million input tokens and $74.84 per million output tokens, and averages 85.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.70 / 1M
- Output
- $74.84 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 85.9
- Open weights
- No
GPT-4.1 Max
GPT-4.1 Max is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $17.34 per million input tokens and $66.38 per million output tokens, and averages 84.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.34 / 1M
- Output
- $66.38 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 84.7
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision | GPT-4.1 Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $17.70 | $17.34 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $74.84 | $66.38 | B |
| Context window | 200,000 | 400,000 | B |
| Max output | 32,768 | 8,192 | A |
| Average score | 85.9 | 84.7 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1452.2 | 1467.6 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Opus 4.5 Vision wins 8, GPT-4.1 Max wins 4, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision | GPT-4.1 Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.9 | 87.4 | 0.5 | GPT-4.1 Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 80.7 | 81.2 | 0.5 | GPT-4.1 Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 77.7 | 74.8 | 2.9 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| HumanEval | 88.2 | 88.8 | 0.6 | GPT-4.1 Max |
| MATH-500 | 91.9 | 87.3 | 4.6 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| AIME 2025 | 85.4 | 84.9 | 0.5 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| LiveCodeBench | 80.1 | 78.5 | 1.6 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| IFEval | 92.6 | 92.1 | 0.5 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| TruthfulQA | 86.9 | 85.4 | 1.5 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| HellaSwag | 91.4 | 90.7 | 0.7 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| MMMU | 83.2 | 80.5 | 2.7 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| Arena Elo | 1452.2 | 1467.6 | 15.4 | GPT-4.1 Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Opus 4.5 Vision costs about $31.98 per million tokens and GPT-4.1 Max costs about $29.60. GPT-4.1 Max is roughly 7% cheaper than Claude Opus 4.5 Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
GPT-4.1 Max has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for Claude Opus 4.5 Vision. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.5 Vision wins 8, GPT-4.1 Max wins 4, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Claude Opus 4.5 Vision leads GPT-4.1 Max by 1.2 points (85.9 versus 84.7).
The price picture favours GPT-4.1 Max. The context picture favours GPT-4.1 Max. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Claude Opus 4.5 Vision for quality-sensitive work and GPT-4.1 Max for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Claude Opus 4.5 Vision if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 32,768-token output limit.
Choose GPT-4.1 Max if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 400,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Claude Opus 4.5 Vision better than GPT-4.1 Max?
On the index average, Claude Opus 4.5 Vision leads GPT-4.1 Max by 1.2 points (85.9 versus 84.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Opus 4.5 Vision wins 8 benchmarks, GPT-4.1 Max wins 4.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.5 Vision or GPT-4.1 Max?
GPT-4.1 Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $29.60 per million tokens, versus $31.98 for Claude Opus 4.5 Vision.
Which has the larger context window?
GPT-4.1 Max has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. Claude Opus 4.5 Vision has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Opus 4.5 Vision is proprietary; GPT-4.1 Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Claude Opus 4.5 Vision for quality-sensitive work and GPT-4.1 Max for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.