Model comparison

GPT-5.4 Mini vs Grok 4.5

Q: Is GPT-5.4 Mini or Grok 4.5 cheaper for input?

GPT-5.4 Mini is cheaper at $0.75 per million input tokens, against $2 for Grok 4.5 — roughly 2.7× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; GPT-5.4 Mini has tiered pricing: Standard $0.75/$4.50 per MTok; cached input $0.075/MTok; batch $0.375/$2.25. Grok 4.5 has tiered pricing: $2/$6 per MTok (<200K prompt); $4/$12 (≥200K). Cached input $0.30/MTok.

Q: Is GPT-5.4 Mini or Grok 4.5 cheaper for output?

GPT-5.4 Mini is cheaper at $4.50 per million output tokens, against $6 for Grok 4.5 — roughly 1.3× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; GPT-5.4 Mini has tiered pricing: Standard $0.75/$4.50 per MTok; cached input $0.075/MTok; batch $0.375/$2.25. Grok 4.5 has tiered pricing: $2/$6 per MTok (<200K prompt); $4/$12 (≥200K). Cached input $0.30/MTok.

Q: Which has the larger context window, GPT-5.4 Mini or Grok 4.5?

Grok 4.5 accepts 500K tokens against 400K for GPT-5.4 Mini. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.

Q: Do GPT-5.4 Mini and Grok 4.5 support the same reasoning levels?

GPT-5.4 Mini exposes none, low, medium, high, while Grok 4.5 exposes low, medium, high.

Q: Should I use GPT-5.4 Mini or Grok 4.5?

Both sit in the balanced tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. GPT-5.4 Mini suits high-volume calls; Grok 4.5 suits real-time data queries.

OpenAI against xAI, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 5, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below

OpenAI

GPT-5.4 Mini

Balanced

xAI

Grok 4.5

Balanced

AI model capability comparison
Specification	GPT-5.4 Mini	Grok 4.5
Provider	OpenAI	xAI
Tier	Balanced	Balanced
Context window	400K	Winner: 500K
Max output	128K	Winner: 131K
Input / 1M tokens	Winner: $0.75	$2
Output / 1M tokens	Winner: $4.50	$6
Weights	Closed	Closed
Parameters	Not disclosedUnverified	Not disclosedUnverified
Reasoning levels	none, low, medium, high	low, medium, high
Modalities	text, image	text, image
API model id	gpt-5.4-mini	grok-4.5
Released	March 17, 2026	July 8, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [high] (2026-08-14)	46	Winner: 56
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-07-16)	Not verifiedUnverified	83.3
DeepSWE 1.1 (2026-07)	Not verifiedUnverified	54

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

2026-08-14: Artificial AnalysisComposite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score. Comparability: directly comparable — AA occasionally rebaselines the index scale between snapshots — a score captured on one date is only comparable to same-snapshot scores (check measuredAt).
2026-07-16: xAI — Introducing Grok 4.5 (vendor; Datacurve-run)Agentic terminal work: multi-step tasks executed in a sandboxed shell environment. Comparability: comparable with caveat — Scores across Terminal-Bench major versions (v1 vs v2) are NOT comparable; harness configuration (container, time limits) also shifts results.
2026-07: Google DeepMind 3.6 Flash evaluation report (independent tabulation; conflicts with xAI's 53 — both preserved)Agentic software engineering: pass@1 on real repo tasks with reported cost per completed task. Comparability: directly comparable

Pricing tiers: GPT-5.4 Mini: Standard $0.75/$4.50 per MTok; cached input $0.075/MTok; batch $0.375/$2.25. · Grok 4.5: $2/$6 per MTok (<200K prompt); $4/$12 (≥200K). Cached input $0.30/MTok.

BalancedRecord checked September 3, 2026

GPT-5.4 Mini

GPT-5.4 Mini is OpenAI's efficient mid-tier for high-volume, well-scoped tasks at $0.75/$4.50.

Best for

High-volume calls
Mixed workloads
Cost-sensitive production

Watch out

400K context (vs 1.05M on GPT-5.4/5.5/5.6); verify long-context needs.

BalancedRecord checked September 5, 2026

Grok 4.5

Grok 4.5 is xAI's balanced model with a 500K context and real-time X integration.

Best for

Real-time data queries
Technical tasks
Cost-sensitive reasoning

Watch out

A step behind Grok 4.6; 500K context is smaller than the 1M-class models.

When the cheaper one wins

GPT-5.4 Mini is cheaper on output at $4.50 per million tokens against $6 for Grok 4.5 — about 1.3×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

Run the model picker

Evidence confidence: High

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
4/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: parameter count.
1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 6 days ago.
Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

GPT-5.4 Mini: OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Mini & Nano (accessed 2026-08-29)
GPT-5.4 Mini: OpenAI API pricing (gpt-5.4-mini $0.75/$4.50) (accessed 2026-08-29)
Grok 4.5: xAI — Introducing Grok 4.5 (public launch 8 Jul 2026; formal announcement 16 Jul) (accessed 2026-08-29)
Grok 4.5: xAI pricing (grok-4.5 $2/$6, 500K) (accessed 2026-08-29)

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? GPT-5.4 Mini · Grok 4.5

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