GPT-4o vs o3
| Signal | GPT-4o | Delta | o3 |
|---|---|---|---|
Capabilities | 67 | -33 | |
Benchmarks | 74 | -14 | |
Pricing | 90 | -2 | |
Context window size | 81 | -3 | |
Recency | 0 | -48 | |
Output Capacity | 70 | -13 | |
| Overall Result | 0 wins | of 6 | 6 wins |
Score History
71.2
current score
o3
right now
86.7
current score
GPT-4o
OpenAI
o3
OpenAI
o3 saves you $150.00/month
That's $1800.00/year compared to GPT-4o at your current usage level of 100K calls/month.
Our score (0-100) is driven by benchmark performance (90%) from Arena Elo ratings, MMLU, GPQA, HumanEval, SWE-bench, and 15+ standardized evaluations. Capabilities and context window serve as tiebreakers (10%). Learn more about our methodology.
Scores 71/100 (rank #111), placing it in the top 62% of all 290 models tracked.
Scores 87/100 (rank #43), placing it in the top 86% of all 290 models tracked.
o3 has a 16-point advantage, which typically translates to noticeably stronger performance on complex reasoning, code generation, and multi-step tasks.
Choose GPT-4o when you need:
- General-purpose tasks across coding, writing, and analysis
Choose o3 when you need:
- Processing long documents or large codebases (200K token context)
- Step-by-step reasoning and chain-of-thought problem solving
o3 offers 20% better value per quality point. At 1M tokens/day, you'd spend $150.00/month with o3 vs $187.50/month with GPT-4o - a $37.50 monthly difference.
Both models have comparable response speeds. For most applications, the latency difference is negligible.
When latency matters most: Interactive chatbots, IDE code completion, real-time translation, and user-facing applications where response time directly impacts experience. For batch processing, background summarization, or offline analysis, latency is less critical.
Code generation & review
Based on overall model capabilities and architecture for coding tasks like generating functions, debugging, and refactoring
Customer support chatbot
Suitable for user-facing chat with competitive response times. o3 also offers lower per-token costs for high-volume support
Long document analysis
Larger context window (200K tokens) can process longer documents, contracts, and research papers in a single pass
Batch data extraction
Lower output pricing ($8.00/M) reduces costs when processing thousands of records daily
Creative writing & content
Higher overall composite score (87/100) correlates with better nuance, coherence, and style in long-form content
Image understanding & OCR
Supports vision input - can analyze screenshots, diagrams, photos, and scanned documents directly
o3 clearly outperforms GPT-4o with a significant 15.5-point lead. For most general use cases, o3 is the stronger choice. However, GPT-4o may still excel in niche scenarios.
By Use Case
Best for Quality
GPT-4o
Marginally better benchmark scores; both are excellent
Best for Cost
o3
20% lower pricing; better value at scale
Best for Reliability
GPT-4o
Higher uptime and faster response speeds
Best for Prototyping
GPT-4o
Stronger community support and better developer experience
Best for Production
GPT-4o
Wider enterprise adoption and proven at scale
by OpenAI
- Choose for Quality - Marginally better benchmark scores; both are excellent
- Choose for Reliability - Higher uptime and faster response speeds
- Choose for Prototyping - Stronger community support and better developer experience
- Choose for Production - Wider enterprise adoption and proven at scale
| Capability | GPT-4o | o3 |
|---|---|---|
| Vision (Image Input) | ||
| Function Calling | ||
| Streaming | ||
| JSON Mode | ||
| Reasoningdiffers | ||
| Web Searchdiffers | ||
| Image Output |
GPT-4o
OpenAI
o3
OpenAI
o3 saves you $3.30/month
That's 20% cheaper than GPT-4o at 1,000 tokens/request and 100 requests/day.
Assumes 60% input / 40% output token ratio per request. Actual costs may vary based on your usage pattern.
| Parameter | GPT-4o | o3 |
|---|---|---|
| Context Window | 128K | 200K |
| Max Output Tokens | 16,384 | 100,000 |
| Open Source | No | No |
| Created | May 13, 2024 | Apr 16, 2025 |