o3 Max vs o4: which model should you choose?
We compared o3 Max and o4 on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. o4 has the stronger average benchmark score; o4 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
o3 Max
o3 Max is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $17.82 per million input tokens and $90.55 per million output tokens, and averages 84.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.82 / 1M
- Output
- $90.55 / 1M
- Context
- 2,000,000
- Avg score
- 84.8
- Open weights
- No
o4
o4 is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $17.74 per million input tokens and $66.00 per million output tokens, and averages 85.4 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.74 / 1M
- Output
- $66.00 / 1M
- Context
- 2,000,000
- Avg score
- 85.4
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | o3 Max | o4 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $17.82 | $17.74 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $90.55 | $66.00 | B |
| Context window | 2,000,000 | 2,000,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 128,000 | 8,192 | A |
| Average score | 84.8 | 85.4 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1465.2 | 1469.4 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
o3 Max wins 5, o4 wins 7, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | o3 Max | o4 | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.9 | 85.3 | 0.4 | o4 |
| GPQA Diamond | 82.7 | 82.3 | 0.4 | o3 Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 71.8 | 74.8 | 3.0 | o4 |
| HumanEval | 89.8 | 89.6 | 0.2 | o3 Max |
| MATH-500 | 87.0 | 90.5 | 3.5 | o4 |
| AIME 2025 | 86.2 | 85.3 | 0.9 | o3 Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 76.4 | 81.4 | 5.0 | o4 |
| IFEval | 92.5 | 92.8 | 0.3 | o4 |
| TruthfulQA | 87.3 | 85.0 | 2.3 | o3 Max |
| HellaSwag | 93.4 | 91.0 | 2.4 | o3 Max |
| MMMU | 80.8 | 80.9 | 0.1 | o4 |
| Arena Elo | 1465.2 | 1469.4 | 4.2 | o4 |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, o3 Max costs about $36.00 per million tokens and o4 costs about $29.80. o4 is roughly 17% cheaper than o3 Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Both models list a 2,000,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, o3 Max wins 5, o4 wins 7, and 0 are tied. On the index average, o4 leads o3 Max by 0.6 points (85.4 versus 84.8).
The price picture favours o4. The context picture is effectively a tie. 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 o4 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose o3 Max if
- You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.
Choose o4 if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
FAQ
Is o3 Max better than o4?
On the index average, o4 leads o3 Max by 0.6 points (85.4 versus 84.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. o3 Max wins 5 benchmarks, o4 wins 7.
Which is cheaper, o3 Max or o4?
o4 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $29.80 per million tokens, versus $36.00 for o3 Max.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 2,000,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
o3 Max is proprietary; o4 is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with o4 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.