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Llama 4 405B vs o3-mini

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

Llama 4 405B specs · o3-mini specs
Verdict by category
  • Priceo3-mini

    o3-mini publishes pricing ($4.40 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 405B does not.

  • Context windowLlama 4 405B

    Llama 4 405B accepts 256K tokens vs 200K, 1.3× the room for long documents and codebases.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • ModalitiesLlama 4 405B

    Llama 4 405B supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for o3-mini.

  • OpennessLlama 4 405B

    Llama 4 405B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License); o3-mini is API-only.

On balance Llama 4 405B edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against o3-mini's 1. o3-mini publishes pricing ($4.40 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 405B does not. Llama 4 405B accepts 256K tokens vs 200K, 1.3× the room for long documents and codebases.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Llama 4 405B handles text, vision while o3-mini handles text, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Llama 4 405B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License); o3-mini is API-only.

Llama 4 405B is the newer of the two, released 2 months after o3-mini, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Llama 4 405B is usually picked for open source llm and fine tuning workloads, while o3-mini sees more deployments in reasoning and math. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecLlama 4 405Bo3-mini
ProviderMetaOpenAI
ReleasedApr 2025Jan 2025
Modalitiestext, visiontext
Context window256K tokens200K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not published$1.10 / 1M tokens
Output · 1MPricing not published$4.40 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff2024-122023-10
Open weightsYes (Llama 4 Community License)No
API availableYesYes

Pricing at scale

What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day, vs $9.90
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $99.00
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $191

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Llama 4 405BPricing unavailable
  • o3-mini$0.330

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Llama 4 405Bo3-mini
  • GPQA,79.7
Pick Llama 4 405B if

Llama 4 405B fits when…

  • Strongest open-weight model at launch
  • Multimodal (text + vision)
  • Wide hosting availability
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Llama 4 Community License).
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
Pick o3-mini if

o3-mini fits when…

  • Reasoning at mid-tier cost
  • Fast for a thinking model
Don't want either?

Consider Llama 4 70B

Meta's mid-tier Llama 4, the practical workhorse for self-hosted deployments.

See Llama 4 70B specsLlama 4 405B vs Llama 4 70Bo3-mini vs Llama 4 70B

Frequently asked

  • Is Llama 4 405B or o3-mini cheaper?
    Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Llama 4 405B accepts 256K tokens vs 200K for o3-mini.
  • Is Llama 4 405B or o3-mini better for coding?
    Both Llama 4 405B and o3-mini are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.
  • Are either of these models open source?
    Llama 4 405B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License). o3-mini is API-only.
  • When were Llama 4 405B and o3-mini released?
    Llama 4 405B was released by Meta on 2025-04-05. o3-mini was released by OpenAI on 2025-01-31.
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