Is GPT-4.1 a good deal?
Whether anything in this catalogue beats GPT-4.1 on both quality and price, and what you give up if it does. A computation on the current catalogue, not an opinion.
12 undominated of 145 · Oct 6, 2026
As of Oct 6, 2026, GPT-4.1 is dominated for Balanced on LMArena. Gemini 3.8 Flash scores 114.0 higher and costs 14% less, with a covering envelope. 12 of 145 rated, priced standard models are undominated.
Inspect model evidence Compare differences & requirements
Gemini 3.8 Flash is both better and cheaper than GPT-4.1: 114.0 points higher on LMArena and 14% less per million tokens, $0.500 cheaper at this mix.
LMArena Elo · higher is better
Scale starts at 1040 Elo
1383.0
Effective $/M · Balanced · lower is better
$3.50/M
LMArena Elo · higher is better
Scale starts at 1040 Elo
1497.0
Effective $/M · Balanced · lower is better
$3.00/M
GPT-4.1 takes image, text, file, returns up to 32,768 tokens from a 1,047,576-token context, and is listed by 3 sellers.
Compared against 145 rated, priced models on this lens: 13 models dominate it and give up nothing, 5 more dominate it but give something up. GPT-4.1 scores 1383 at $3.50 per million tokens for this mix.
Envelope-safe replacements
Each row scores at least as high, costs no more, and covers this model’s context, output, modalities, tools, and reasoning. A cheaper narrower model is not listed here.
| Model | LMArena | Effective $/M | You save |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | 1497.0 +114.0 | $3.00/M | 14% |
| Muse Spark 1.3 | 1489.9 +106.9 | $2.00/M | 43% |
| Gemini 3.7 Flash | 1487.0 +104.0 | $3.00/M | 14% |
| Muse Spark 1.2 | 1483.2 +100.2 | $2.00/M | 43% |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | 1479.5 +96.5 | $1.50/M | 57% |
| Muse Spark 1.1 | 1479.2 +96.2 | $2.00/M | 43% |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 1477.7 +94.7 | $3.38/M | 4% |
| Gemini 2.5 Pro | 1457.8 +74.8 | $3.44/M | 2% |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | 1434.7 +51.7 | $0.850/M | 76% |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | 1431.0 +48.0 | $0.450/M | 87% |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | 1417.0 +34.0 | $0.850/M | 76% |
| Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview | 1415.7 +32.7 | $0.563/M | 84% |
| GPT-6 Luna | 1391.5 +8.5 | $0.200/M | 94% |
Higher score, lower price, named losses
Not a drop-in. The loss is why these are not a recommendation.
| Model | LMArena | Effective $/M | You give up |
|---|---|---|---|
| MiMo-V2.6-Pro | 1491.0 | $0.540/M | file |
| GLM 5.3 | 1471.4 | $1.00/M | image, file |
| GLM 5.2 | 1470.4 | $1.12/M | image, file |
| GLM 5.3 Flash | 1469.6 | $0.238/M | file |
| MiMo-V2.5-Pro | 1465.0 | $0.544/M | image, file |
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Saved decision references
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Constraint: replacements must preserve the model’s capabilities; any losses remain named trade-offs.
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