o3 vs o4 Vision: which model should you choose?
We compared o3 and o4 Vision on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. o3 and o4 Vision are effectively tied on the index average; o3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
o3
o3 is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $16.80 per million input tokens and $81.80 per million output tokens, and averages 84.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.80 / 1M
- Output
- $81.80 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 84.5
- Open weights
- No
o4 Vision
o4 Vision is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $17.01 per million input tokens and $90.05 per million output tokens, and averages 84.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.01 / 1M
- Output
- $90.05 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 84.5
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | o3 | o4 Vision | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $16.80 | $17.01 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $81.80 | $90.05 | A |
| Context window | 400,000 | 200,000 | A |
| Max output | 4,096 | 4,096 | Tie |
| Average score | 84.5 | 84.5 | Tie |
| Arena Elo | 1449.0 | 1473.2 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
o3 wins 5, o4 Vision wins 7, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | o3 | o4 Vision | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.9 | 84.2 | 2.7 | o3 |
| GPQA Diamond | 78.3 | 80.9 | 2.6 | o4 Vision |
| SWE-bench Verified | 72.9 | 75.6 | 2.7 | o4 Vision |
| HumanEval | 89.8 | 88.9 | 0.9 | o3 |
| MATH-500 | 87.9 | 91.7 | 3.8 | o4 Vision |
| AIME 2025 | 84.4 | 80.4 | 4.0 | o3 |
| LiveCodeBench | 80.7 | 81.3 | 0.6 | o4 Vision |
| IFEval | 88.7 | 89.1 | 0.4 | o4 Vision |
| TruthfulQA | 84.6 | 85.3 | 0.7 | o4 Vision |
| HellaSwag | 92.7 | 91.2 | 1.5 | o3 |
| MMMU | 82.3 | 80.7 | 1.6 | o3 |
| Arena Elo | 1449.0 | 1473.2 | 24.2 | o4 Vision |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, o3 costs about $33.05 per million tokens and o4 Vision costs about $35.27. o3 is roughly 6% cheaper than o4 Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
o3 has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for o4 Vision. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, o3 wins 5, o4 Vision wins 7, and 0 are tied. The two models are effectively tied on the index average at 84.5.
The price picture favours o3. The context picture favours o3. 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 o3; it is cheaper on a blended basis and has the larger context window. Test it on your own traffic before committing.
Choose o3 if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 400,000-token context window.
Choose o4 Vision if
- You prefer OpenAI's tooling or already use it.
FAQ
Is o3 better than o4 Vision?
The two models are effectively tied on the index average at 84.5. The better choice depends on price, context and your task. o3 wins 5 benchmarks, o4 Vision wins 7.
Which is cheaper, o3 or o4 Vision?
o3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $33.05 per million tokens, versus $35.27 for o4 Vision.
Which has the larger context window?
o3 has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. o4 Vision has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
o3 is proprietary; o4 Vision is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with o3; it is cheaper on a blended basis and has the larger context window. Test it on your own traffic before committing.