ModelRefs / GPT-4o vs GPT-5 — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding Comparison

GPT-4o vs GPT-5 — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding Comparison

GPT-4o vs GPT-5: side-by-side benchmarks, pricing, context windows, coding ability and deployment. Pick the right model for your stack.

Overview

GPT-5: GPT-5 is OpenAI's August 2025 reasoning model for coding, reasoning, and agentic tasks. The API model supports text input and output, image input, configurable reasoning effort, and an immutable gpt-5-2025-08-07 snapshot; OpenAI now classifies it as a previous-generation model.

Context window: GPT-4o accepts up to 128,000 tokens, GPT-5 up to 400,000. Confirm the limit for your specific deployment channel before relying on it.

GPT-4o vs GPT-5 at a glance

AttributeGPT-4oGPT-5
ProviderOpenAIOpenAI
Released2024-05-132025-08-07
Context window128,000 tokens400,000 tokens
Input price$2.5/M tokens$1.25/M tokens
Output price$10/M tokens$10/M tokens
LicenceProprietaryProprietary
Self-hostableNo, hosted onlyNo, hosted only
Modalitiestext, vision, audiotext, vision

Benchmarks reported for both

BenchmarkGPT-4oGPT-5Reported
gpqa49.985.72024-11-21 / 2025-08-07
swe-bench33.274.92024-08-13 / 2025-08-07

Scores are as published by their cited sources on the dates shown. Different runs use different harnesses, prompts, and dates, so treat these as directional evidence rather than a head-to-head result.

Where they differ most

  • Hallucination Resistance: GPT-4o 39%, GPT-5 99%. GPT-5 leads on this dimension.
  • Agentic: GPT-4o 33%, GPT-5 89%. GPT-5 leads on this dimension.
  • Coding: GPT-4o 33%, GPT-5 81%. GPT-5 leads on this dimension.
  • Reasoning: GPT-4o 69%, GPT-5 90%. GPT-5 leads on this dimension.
  • Cost Efficiency: GPT-4o 46%, GPT-5 47%. GPT-5 leads on this dimension.
  • Instruction Following: GPT-4o 87%, GPT-5 88%. GPT-5 leads on this dimension.

Capability scores are ModelRefs' own derived signals, not vendor claims or benchmark results. Validate against your own workload before relying on them.

Continue your research

Use these connected ModelRefs sections to compare alternatives, inspect implementation paths, and review the evidence and governance boundaries relevant to GPT-4o vs GPT-5 — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding Comparison.

Frequently asked questions

Which is better, GPT-4o or GPT-5?

GPT-4o and GPT-5 target different workloads — see the benchmark and pricing tables for a side-by-side answer.

Is GPT-4o cheaper than GPT-5?

Compare $0.00250 vs $0.00125 on this page.