GPT-4 API Pricing Guide 2026
Compare GPT-4o, GPT-4 Turbo, and GPT-4o mini costs. Calculate monthly API spend for any workload.
Current GPT-4 API Pricing
OpenAI offers several GPT-4 variants at different price points. Pricing is billed per token, with separate rates for input (prompt) tokens and output (completion) tokens. Understanding these tiers is essential for budgeting your AI infrastructure costs.
| Model | Input / 1M tokens | Output / 1M tokens | Context Window |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-4o | $5.00 | $15.00 | 128K |
| GPT-4 Turbo | $10.00 | $30.00 | 128K |
| GPT-4o mini | $0.15 | $0.60 | 128K |
GPT-4o replaced GPT-4 Turbo as OpenAI's flagship model, offering the same 128K context window at half the price. GPT-4o mini targets the budget tier, competing directly with Claude Haiku and Gemini Flash for high-volume, cost-sensitive workloads. The original GPT-4 (8K context) at $30/$60 per million tokens is now deprecated in favor of these newer variants.
GPT-4o vs Claude: Head-to-Head Pricing
The most common comparison developers make is between GPT-4o and Claude Sonnet, as both target the same mid-tier quality segment. On input tokens, Claude Sonnet is 40% cheaper at $3 versus $5 per million tokens. Output tokens are identically priced at $15 per million. For input-heavy workloads like document processing or RAG pipelines, Claude Sonnet offers a meaningful cost advantage.
At the budget tier, GPT-4o mini ($0.15/$0.60) edges out Claude Haiku ($0.25/$1.25) on per-token cost. GPT-4o mini is 40% cheaper on input and 52% cheaper on output. However, Claude Haiku tends to produce more reliable structured outputs in benchmarks, so the effective cost per successful completion may be closer than the raw token prices suggest. The right choice depends on your quality requirements and error tolerance.
At the top tier, Claude Opus ($15/$75) is more expensive than GPT-4o ($5/$15) but targets a different quality level. There is no direct GPT-4 equivalent to Opus pricing, as OpenAI's most capable model (GPT-4o) is also their most cost-efficient GPT-4 variant.
Cost Optimization Strategies for GPT-4
The most impactful optimization is migrating from GPT-4 Turbo to GPT-4o if you have not already done so. This single change cuts costs by 50% with no quality degradation. OpenAI has indicated that GPT-4 Turbo will eventually be sunset, so this migration is inevitable.
For applications with mixed complexity, implement a model router that sends simple queries to GPT-4o mini and escalates complex ones to GPT-4o. A well-tuned router can handle 70-80% of requests with the mini model, reducing average costs by 60% or more. Use classification signals like query length, topic complexity, and required reasoning depth to make routing decisions.
OpenAI's Batch API processes requests asynchronously within 24 hours and offers a 50% discount. For workloads like content generation, data extraction, or evaluation pipelines that do not require real-time responses, batch processing cuts GPT-4o costs to $2.50/$7.50 per million tokens, which is cheaper than Claude Sonnet's standard pricing.
Additional optimizations include setting appropriate max_tokens limits to prevent unnecessarily long outputs, using system prompt caching where available, compressing context with summarization before sending to the API, and using function calling with structured outputs to reduce token waste from conversational filler in responses.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does GPT-4o cost per API call?
GPT-4o costs $5 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens. A typical API call with 1,000 input tokens and 500 output tokens costs $0.0125. At 10,000 calls per day, that is roughly $3,750 per month.
What is the difference between GPT-4o and GPT-4 Turbo?
GPT-4o is OpenAI's latest multimodal model at $5/$15 per million tokens, while GPT-4 Turbo is the previous generation at $10/$30. GPT-4o is faster, cheaper, and handles text, images, and audio natively. For most use cases, GPT-4o is the better choice.
Is GPT-4o mini cheaper than Claude Haiku?
GPT-4o mini costs $0.15/$0.60 per million tokens while Claude Haiku costs $0.25/$1.25. GPT-4o mini is cheaper on both input and output tokens, though Claude Haiku may offer better quality for certain tasks. Test both for your specific use case.
Does OpenAI offer volume discounts on GPT-4?
OpenAI offers tiered rate limits based on usage level but does not publicly offer per-token volume discounts. Enterprise customers can negotiate custom pricing. OpenAI's Batch API provides a 50% discount for non-real-time workloads processed within 24 hours.
How do I reduce GPT-4 API costs?
Use GPT-4o mini for simple tasks, limit max_tokens in responses, cache frequent prompts, use the Batch API for offline processing, and implement model routing to send only complex queries to GPT-4o. Switching from GPT-4 Turbo to GPT-4o alone saves 50%.
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Built by Michael Lip. Pricing data updated regularly from official provider pages.