Lightweight, high-performance model with million-token context and near-flagship-level encoding and image understanding capabilities, while reducing costs by 83%. It is suitable for rapid development and small to medium-sized applications. The automatic caching mechanism provides a 75% cost reduction on cache hits.
gpt-4.1-mini vs gpt-4.1-mini-free
Context lengths are 1,047,576 tokens on gpt-4.1-mini and 1,047,576 tokens on gpt-4.1-mini-free. Time to first token (TTFT) measured on AIHubMix is 0.7s on gpt-4.1-mini and 0.4s on gpt-4.1-mini-free. Measured output throughput is 58.0 tok/s on gpt-4.1-mini and 59.3 tok/s on gpt-4.1-mini-free. On the LMArena coding leaderboard gpt-4.1-mini scores 1433 and gpt-4.1-mini-free scores 1433.
This free model API comes from the OpenAI model deployed on Azure. To prevent abuse, the external content filter provided by Azure has been enforced, which will result in additional delays. If you want to experience the full version of the model API without filters, please use the paid version and request the model name ID without "-free".
Pricing & Specifications
Prices are per million tokens. Time to First Token and throughput are rolling averages measured on AIHubMix.
Promotional prices show the discounted rate; see each model page for promotion windows.
Activity Past 30 Days
Daily traffic served through AIHubMix — how demand for each model is trending.
Tokens / day
Requests / day
Performance Past 3 Days
Measured on real AIHubMix traffic, hourly buckets. Gaps mean no traffic in that hour.
Throughput (tok/s)
TTFT (s)
Uptime (%)
LMArena Benchmarks
LMArena ratings by capability (Bradley-Terry, commonly called Elo). Higher is better.
Source: LMArena (arena.ai) leaderboard, imported by AIHubMix. Models without published ratings are omitted per chart.
Cost calculator
Estimate your monthly bill for the same workload on each model.
Monthly = daily × 30. Discounted rates applied where a promotion is active.
FAQ
How do their coding arena scores compare?
gpt-4.1-mini: 1433; gpt-4.1-mini-free: 1433 (LMArena coding leaderboard).
Which responds faster?
gpt-4.1-mini-free: 0.4s time to first token measured on AIHubMix; see the live performance charts above for how each model behaves across the day.
How large is each context window?
gpt-4.1-mini accepts 1,047,576 and gpt-4.1-mini-free accepts 1,047,576 input tokens. Maximum output per request is 32,768 tokens on gpt-4.1-mini and 32,768 tokens on gpt-4.1-mini-free.
Which one generates tokens faster?
gpt-4.1-mini-free at 59.3 tok/s and gpt-4.1-mini at 58.0 tok/s, measured as output throughput on AIHubMix — a separate metric from time to first token.
What inputs and capabilities does each model support?
gpt-4.1-mini accepts text and image input and supports tool calling, function calling, structured outputs and long context; gpt-4.1-mini-free accepts text and image input and supports tool calling, function calling, structured outputs and long context.
Can I call gpt-4.1-mini and gpt-4.1-mini-free with the same API key?
Yes. AIHubMix serves every model on this page behind one OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so switching between them is a one-line change to the model field — no second account, key or SDK.
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