Head-to-head · frontier vs frontier

Gemini 3 Pro Vision vs GPT-5.1 Vision: which model should you choose?

We compared Gemini 3 Pro Vision and GPT-5.1 Vision on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Gemini 3 Pro Vision has the stronger average benchmark score; Gemini 3 Pro Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.

Google DeepMind

Gemini 3 Pro Vision

Gemini 3 Pro Vision is a frontier model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $17.59 per million input tokens and $68.83 per million output tokens, and averages 85.5 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$17.59 / 1M
Output
$68.83 / 1M
Context
200,000
Avg score
85.5
Open weights
No
Full Gemini 3 Pro Vision page
OpenAI

GPT-5.1 Vision

GPT-5.1 Vision is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $17.76 per million input tokens and $80.59 per million output tokens, and averages 84.8 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$17.76 / 1M
Output
$80.59 / 1M
Context
400,000
Avg score
84.8
Open weights
No
Full GPT-5.1 Vision page

Specification comparison

SpecGemini 3 Pro VisionGPT-5.1 VisionEdge
Input price / 1M$17.59$17.76A
Output price / 1M$68.83$80.59A
Context window200,000400,000B
Max output128,00016,384A
Average score85.584.8A
Arena Elo1458.11462.4B
Open weightsNoNoTie

Benchmark comparison

Gemini 3 Pro Vision wins 6, GPT-5.1 Vision wins 6, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.

BenchmarkGemini 3 Pro VisionGPT-5.1 VisionGapWinner
MMLU-Pro87.385.51.8Gemini 3 Pro Vision
GPQA Diamond80.678.71.9Gemini 3 Pro Vision
SWE-bench Verified76.573.62.9Gemini 3 Pro Vision
HumanEval91.689.62.0Gemini 3 Pro Vision
MATH-50088.489.10.7GPT-5.1 Vision
AIME 202587.382.44.9Gemini 3 Pro Vision
LiveCodeBench79.277.81.4Gemini 3 Pro Vision
IFEval90.492.72.3GPT-5.1 Vision
TruthfulQA84.586.92.4GPT-5.1 Vision
HellaSwag91.192.11.0GPT-5.1 Vision
MMMU83.683.90.3GPT-5.1 Vision
Arena Elo1458.11462.44.3GPT-5.1 Vision

Price analysis

On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Gemini 3 Pro Vision costs about $30.40 per million tokens and GPT-5.1 Vision costs about $33.47. Gemini 3 Pro Vision is roughly 9% cheaper than GPT-5.1 Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.

GPT-5.1 Vision has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for Gemini 3 Pro Vision. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.

Verdict

Across 12 shared benchmarks, Gemini 3 Pro Vision wins 6, GPT-5.1 Vision wins 6, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Gemini 3 Pro Vision leads GPT-5.1 Vision by 0.7 points (85.5 versus 84.8).

The price picture favours Gemini 3 Pro Vision. The context picture favours GPT-5.1 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 Gemini 3 Pro Vision for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.

Choose Gemini 3 Pro Vision 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 128,000-token output limit.

Choose GPT-5.1 Vision if

  • You need the larger 400,000-token context window.

FAQ

Is Gemini 3 Pro Vision better than GPT-5.1 Vision?

On the index average, Gemini 3 Pro Vision leads GPT-5.1 Vision by 0.7 points (85.5 versus 84.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Gemini 3 Pro Vision wins 6 benchmarks, GPT-5.1 Vision wins 6.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Pro Vision or GPT-5.1 Vision?

Gemini 3 Pro Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $30.40 per million tokens, versus $33.47 for GPT-5.1 Vision.

Which has the larger context window?

GPT-5.1 Vision has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. Gemini 3 Pro Vision has 200,000 tokens.

Are these models open weights?

Gemini 3 Pro Vision is proprietary; GPT-5.1 Vision is proprietary.

Which should I choose for production?

If you need a single default, start with Gemini 3 Pro Vision for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.

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