GPT-4o vs gpt-oss-120b
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
OpenAI · May 2024
The 2024 omni-modal classic with native audio in and out; superseded at the frontier but still everywhere in production.
OpenAI · Aug 2025
OpenAI's open-weights MoE reasoning model under Apache 2.0 — near o4-mini quality, runnable on a single 80GB GPU.
The verdict
gpt-oss-120b wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for GPT-4o. On price the gap is dramatic: gpt-oss-120b works out roughly 22x cheaper per blended million tokens. gpt-oss-120b also takes 131K of context versus 128K for GPT-4o. And gpt-oss-120b is open-weights (Apache 2.0), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
Benchmark head-to-head 0–1
Specs & pricing
| GPT-4o | gpt-oss-120b | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | — | — |
| Input price / 1M | $2.5 | $0.1 |
| Output price / 1M | $10 | $0.5 |
| Context window | 128K | 131K |
| Max output | 16K | 131K |
| Open weights | no | yes (Apache 2.0) |
| Reasoning model | no | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image, audio | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Oct 2023 | Jun 2024 |
| Released | May 2024 | Aug 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $40.00 | $1.75 |
* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is better, GPT-4o or gpt-oss-120b?
- gpt-oss-120b wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for GPT-4o. On price the gap is dramatic: gpt-oss-120b works out roughly 22x cheaper per blended million tokens. gpt-oss-120b also takes 131K of context versus 128K for GPT-4o. And gpt-oss-120b is open-weights (Apache 2.0), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
- Which is cheaper, GPT-4o or gpt-oss-120b?
- GPT-4o costs $2.5/$10 per million input/output tokens, while gpt-oss-120b costs $0.1/$0.5. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $40.00 versus $1.75.
- Which model is better for coding, GPT-4o or gpt-oss-120b?
- We don't yet track SWE-bench Verified results for both models; check their individual pages for coding-related scores.