Head-to-head · multimodal vs multimodal

Gemini 2.5 Pro vs GPT-4.1 Vision: which model should you choose?

We compared Gemini 2.5 Pro and GPT-4.1 Vision on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. GPT-4.1 Vision has the stronger average benchmark score; Gemini 2.5 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.

Google DeepMind

Gemini 2.5 Pro

Gemini 2.5 Pro is a multimodal model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $15.20 per million input tokens and $57.83 per million output tokens, and averages 81.6 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$15.20 / 1M
Output
$57.83 / 1M
Context
200,000
Avg score
81.6
Open weights
No
Full Gemini 2.5 Pro page
OpenAI

GPT-4.1 Vision

GPT-4.1 Vision is a multimodal model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $14.88 per million input tokens and $81.24 per million output tokens, and averages 82.0 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$14.88 / 1M
Output
$81.24 / 1M
Context
1,000,000
Avg score
82.0
Open weights
No
Full GPT-4.1 Vision page

Specification comparison

SpecGemini 2.5 ProGPT-4.1 VisionEdge
Input price / 1M$15.20$14.88B
Output price / 1M$57.83$81.24A
Context window200,0001,000,000B
Max output16,3848,192A
Average score81.682.0B
Arena Elo1455.01451.8A
Open weightsNoNoTie

Benchmark comparison

Gemini 2.5 Pro wins 4, GPT-4.1 Vision wins 7, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.

BenchmarkGemini 2.5 ProGPT-4.1 VisionGapWinner
MMLU-Pro83.684.00.4GPT-4.1 Vision
GPQA Diamond76.579.32.8GPT-4.1 Vision
SWE-bench Verified70.272.42.2GPT-4.1 Vision
HumanEval87.786.80.9Gemini 2.5 Pro
MATH-50086.887.50.7GPT-4.1 Vision
AIME 202576.177.21.1GPT-4.1 Vision
LiveCodeBench76.274.31.9Gemini 2.5 Pro
IFEval87.688.71.1GPT-4.1 Vision
TruthfulQA82.884.41.6GPT-4.1 Vision
HellaSwag89.789.70.0Tie
MMMU80.577.53.0Gemini 2.5 Pro
Arena Elo1455.01451.83.2Gemini 2.5 Pro

Price analysis

On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Gemini 2.5 Pro costs about $25.86 per million tokens and GPT-4.1 Vision costs about $31.47. Gemini 2.5 Pro is roughly 18% cheaper than GPT-4.1 Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.

GPT-4.1 Vision has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for Gemini 2.5 Pro. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.

Verdict

Across 12 shared benchmarks, Gemini 2.5 Pro wins 4, GPT-4.1 Vision wins 7, and 1 are tied. On the index average, GPT-4.1 Vision leads Gemini 2.5 Pro by 0.4 points (82.0 versus 81.6).

The price picture favours Gemini 2.5 Pro. The context picture favours GPT-4.1 Vision. 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 GPT-4.1 Vision for quality-sensitive work and Gemini 2.5 Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.

Choose Gemini 2.5 Pro if

  • Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
  • You need the larger 16,384-token output limit.
  • The workload needs multi-step reasoning.

Choose GPT-4.1 Vision if

  • You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
  • You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.

FAQ

Is Gemini 2.5 Pro better than GPT-4.1 Vision?

On the index average, GPT-4.1 Vision leads Gemini 2.5 Pro by 0.4 points (82.0 versus 81.6). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Gemini 2.5 Pro wins 4 benchmarks, GPT-4.1 Vision wins 7.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Pro or GPT-4.1 Vision?

Gemini 2.5 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $25.86 per million tokens, versus $31.47 for GPT-4.1 Vision.

Which has the larger context window?

GPT-4.1 Vision has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Gemini 2.5 Pro has 200,000 tokens.

Are these models open weights?

Gemini 2.5 Pro is proprietary; GPT-4.1 Vision is proprietary.

Which should I choose for production?

If you need a single default, start with GPT-4.1 Vision for quality-sensitive work and Gemini 2.5 Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.

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