Is GPT-5.4 Mini a good deal?
Whether anything in this catalogue beats GPT-5.4 Mini on both quality and price, and what you give up if it does. A computation on the current catalogue, not an opinion.
13 undominated of 136 · Sep 23, 2026
As of Sep 23, 2026, GPT-5.4 Mini is dominated for Balanced on LMArena. GPT-5.6 Luna scores 17.8 higher and costs 73% less, with a covering envelope. 13 of 136 rated, priced standard models are undominated.
Inspect model evidence Compare differences & requirements
GPT-5.6 Luna is both better and cheaper than GPT-5.4 Mini: 17.8 points higher on LMArena and 73% less per million tokens, $1.24 cheaper at this mix.
LMArena Elo · higher is better
Scale starts at 1040 Elo
1412.1
Effective $/M · Balanced · lower is better
$1.69/M
LMArena Elo · higher is better
Scale starts at 1040 Elo
1429.9
Effective $/M · Balanced · lower is better
$0.450/M
GPT-5.4 Mini takes file, image, text, returns up to 128,000 tokens from a 400,000-token context, and is listed by 5 sellers.
Compared against 136 rated, priced models on this lens: 1 model dominates it and gives up nothing, 5 more dominate it but give something up. GPT-5.4 Mini scores 1412.1 at $1.69 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.6 Luna | 1429.9 +17.8 | $0.450/M | 73% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | 1494.7 | $1.50/M | max output |
| Gemini 3.7 Flash | 1490.5 | $1.50/M | max output |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | 1476.1 | $1.50/M | max output |
| GLM 5.3 | 1475.1 | $1.29/M | file, image |
| GLM 5.3 Flash | 1471.9 | $0.237/M | file |
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Constraint: replacements must preserve the model’s capabilities; any losses remain named trade-offs.
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