Gemini 2.5 Pro Max vs GPT-4.1 Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared Gemini 2.5 Pro Max and GPT-4.1 Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Gemini 2.5 Pro Max has the stronger average benchmark score; Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is a frontier model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $16.94 per million input tokens and $64.80 per million output tokens, and averages 84.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.94 / 1M
- Output
- $64.80 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 84.8
- Open weights
- No
GPT-4.1 Reasoning
GPT-4.1 Reasoning is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $16.97 per million input tokens and $82.05 per million output tokens, and averages 83.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.97 / 1M
- Output
- $82.05 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 83.8
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max | GPT-4.1 Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $16.94 | $16.97 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $64.80 | $82.05 | A |
| Context window | 200,000 | 1,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 65,536 | 4,096 | A |
| Average score | 84.8 | 83.8 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1450.2 | 1466.7 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max wins 7, GPT-4.1 Reasoning wins 5, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max | GPT-4.1 Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.7 | 87.3 | 0.6 | GPT-4.1 Reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond | 79.8 | 77.8 | 2.0 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.5 | 73.1 | 2.4 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| HumanEval | 87.0 | 88.8 | 1.8 | GPT-4.1 Reasoning |
| MATH-500 | 91.6 | 89.1 | 2.5 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| AIME 2025 | 82.6 | 82.1 | 0.5 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 79.9 | 80.5 | 0.6 | GPT-4.1 Reasoning |
| IFEval | 91.3 | 91.6 | 0.3 | GPT-4.1 Reasoning |
| TruthfulQA | 85.5 | 84.3 | 1.2 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| HellaSwag | 92.9 | 89.4 | 3.5 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| MMMU | 79.7 | 77.5 | 2.2 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Max |
| Arena Elo | 1450.2 | 1466.7 | 16.5 | GPT-4.1 Reasoning |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max costs about $28.91 per million tokens and GPT-4.1 Reasoning costs about $33.24. Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is roughly 13% cheaper than GPT-4.1 Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
GPT-4.1 Reasoning has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for Gemini 2.5 Pro Max. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max wins 7, GPT-4.1 Reasoning wins 5, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max leads GPT-4.1 Reasoning by 1.0 points (84.8 versus 83.8).
The price picture favours Gemini 2.5 Pro Max. The context picture favours GPT-4.1 Reasoning. 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 Gemini 2.5 Pro Max for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Gemini 2.5 Pro Max if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
Choose GPT-4.1 Reasoning if
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Gemini 2.5 Pro Max better than GPT-4.1 Reasoning?
On the index average, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max leads GPT-4.1 Reasoning by 1.0 points (84.8 versus 83.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Gemini 2.5 Pro Max wins 7 benchmarks, GPT-4.1 Reasoning wins 5.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Pro Max or GPT-4.1 Reasoning?
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $28.91 per million tokens, versus $33.24 for GPT-4.1 Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
GPT-4.1 Reasoning has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Gemini 2.5 Pro Max has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Gemini 2.5 Pro Max is proprietary; GPT-4.1 Reasoning is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Gemini 2.5 Pro Max for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.