o4 Pro vs o4 Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared o4 Pro and o4 Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. o4 Reasoning has the stronger average benchmark score; o4 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
o4 Pro
o4 Pro is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $19.37 per million input tokens and $70.19 per million output tokens, and averages 87.3 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $19.37 / 1M
- Output
- $70.19 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 87.3
- Open weights
- No
o4 Reasoning
o4 Reasoning is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $19.69 per million input tokens and $103.53 per million output tokens, and averages 87.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $19.69 / 1M
- Output
- $103.53 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 87.5
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | o4 Pro | o4 Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $19.37 | $19.69 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $70.19 | $103.53 | A |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 1,000,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 16,384 | 128,000 | B |
| Average score | 87.3 | 87.5 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1471.2 | 1472.2 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
o4 Pro wins 5, o4 Reasoning wins 7, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | o4 Pro | o4 Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 87.7 | 86.1 | 1.6 | o4 Pro |
| GPQA Diamond | 82.7 | 84.0 | 1.3 | o4 Reasoning |
| SWE-bench Verified | 78.5 | 76.4 | 2.1 | o4 Pro |
| HumanEval | 92.1 | 90.2 | 1.9 | o4 Pro |
| MATH-500 | 89.8 | 94.8 | 5.0 | o4 Reasoning |
| AIME 2025 | 89.9 | 90.3 | 0.4 | o4 Reasoning |
| LiveCodeBench | 81.8 | 83.4 | 1.6 | o4 Reasoning |
| IFEval | 90.9 | 94.5 | 3.6 | o4 Reasoning |
| TruthfulQA | 87.9 | 89.0 | 1.1 | o4 Reasoning |
| HellaSwag | 94.4 | 92.4 | 2.0 | o4 Pro |
| MMMU | 84.1 | 81.8 | 2.3 | o4 Pro |
| Arena Elo | 1471.2 | 1472.2 | 1.0 | o4 Reasoning |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, o4 Pro costs about $32.08 per million tokens and o4 Reasoning costs about $40.65. o4 Pro is roughly 21% cheaper than o4 Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Both models list a 1,000,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, o4 Pro wins 5, o4 Reasoning wins 7, and 0 are tied. On the index average, o4 Reasoning leads o4 Pro by 0.2 points (87.5 versus 87.3).
The price picture favours o4 Pro. 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 Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and o4 Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose o4 Pro if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
Choose o4 Reasoning if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.
FAQ
Is o4 Pro better than o4 Reasoning?
On the index average, o4 Reasoning leads o4 Pro by 0.2 points (87.5 versus 87.3). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. o4 Pro wins 5 benchmarks, o4 Reasoning wins 7.
Which is cheaper, o4 Pro or o4 Reasoning?
o4 Pro is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $32.08 per million tokens, versus $40.65 for o4 Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 1,000,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
o4 Pro is proprietary; o4 Reasoning is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with o4 Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and o4 Pro for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.