GPT 5.1 vs GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05)

GPT 5.1 vs GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05): GPT 5.1 is cheaper by 50% on average. GPT 5.1 from Azure OpenAI (272,000-token context, reasoning, tool calls) vs. GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05) from OpenAI (1,050,000-token context, reasoning, tool calls). Use Agent Command Center to A/B both in shadow mode and pick the winner per workload.

Side-by-side cost

Live workload comparison

Same workload run through both models. The cheaper one is highlighted.

3,000
01,050,000
400
0128,000
5,000
01,000,000
GPT 5.1Cheaper
Azure OpenAI
$1,179/mo
Input $1.25/M · Output $10.00/M
OpenAI
$2,055/mo
Input $2.50/M · Output $15.00/M
At this workload, GPT 5.1 is 43% cheaper than GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05) — a savings of $875/month ($10,501/year).
Production recipe — Agent Command Center
strategy: cost-optimized
primary:
  model: gpt-5-1
  provider: azure-openai
fallback:
  model: gpt-5-4-2026-03-05
  provider: openai
shadow: { sample_rate: 0.05 }   # mirror 5% of traffic to compare quality live
GPT 5.1 GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05)
Input price $1.25/M $2.50/M
Output price $10.00/M $15.00/M
Context window 272,000 1,050,000
Max output 128,000 128,000
Function calling
Vision
Audio input
Reasoning
Prompt caching
Structured output
Pricing verified May 12, 2026 May 12, 2026
Cheaper option
~50% cheaper than GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05)
Larger context
1,050,000 tokens
More capabilities
5 of 6 capability flags advertised

Benchmark comparison

Side-by-side public benchmark scores. Greener bar = winner.

Chatbot Arena ELOgeneral
GPT 5.1
1,455
GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05)
AIME 2025math
GPT 5.1
94.0%
GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05)
GPQA Diamondreasoning
GPT 5.1
88.1%
GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05)
MMMUmultimodal
GPT 5.1
85.4%
GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05)
τ-bench (retail)agent
GPT 5.1
77.9%
GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05)
SWE-bench Verifiedagent
GPT 5.1
76.3%
GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05)
τ-bench (airline)agent
GPT 5.1
67.0%
GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05)
FrontierMathmath
GPT 5.1
26.7%
GPT 5.4 (2026-03-05)