API cost decision in 10 seconds

🔥GPT-4o-mini vs Llama Guard 4 12B

Pick Llama Guard 4 12B when budget and context both matter.

Page updated:  Data confirmed:  Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output

Budget verdict

Pick Llama Guard 4 12B when budget and context both matter.

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Llama Guard 4 12B is estimated at $0.27 vs $0.45 for GPT-4o-mini, saving $0.18 (40% lower).

Cost-first pickLlama Guard 4 12B
Context-first pickLlama Guard 4 12B
Sample savings$0.1840%
10x traffic gap$1.8

Llama Guard 4 12B is cheaper on the standard workload and also has the larger context window. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $1.8. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.

Cost sensitivity

Workload Sensitivity

Same prices, different token mixes.

Llama Guard 4 12B stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.

Workload shapeToken mixBetter pickGPT-4o-miniLlama Guard 4 12B
Input-heavy / RAG5M input + 500K outputLlama Guard 4 12B$1.05$0.99
Balanced workload1M input + 1M outputLlama Guard 4 12B$0.75$0.36
Output-heavy chatbot1M input + 5M outputLlama Guard 4 12B$3.15$1.08
Cheaper input GPT-4o-mini $0.15 vs $0.18 / 1M

GPT-4o-mini is $0.03 cheaper per 1M input tokens (16.7% lower; 1.2x difference).

Cheaper output Llama Guard 4 12B $0.6 vs $0.18 / 1M

Llama Guard 4 12B is $0.42 cheaper per 1M output tokens (70% lower; 3.33x difference).

Larger context Llama Guard 4 12B 128K vs 163.84K

Llama Guard 4 12B has 35.84K more context (1.28x larger).

Sample workload Llama Guard 4 12B $0.45 vs $0.27

Llama Guard 4 12B is $0.18 cheaper on the standard workload (40% lower).

Estimate your workload cost

Your Workload Cost

Prices are normalized to USD per 1M tokens.
GPT-4o-mini Calculating… Estimated API cost
Llama Guard 4 12B Calculating… Estimated API cost
Cheaper for this workload Calculating… Difference: calculating…

This estimate uses normalized public API pricing per 1M tokens. It is a planning aid, not a billing quote. Verify provider pricing, limits, and terms before production use.

Quick Decision

Verdict

GPT-4o-mini has the lower input price; Llama Guard 4 12B has the lower output price; Llama Guard 4 12B offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, Llama Guard 4 12B is cheaper for the standard workload.

For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $0.45 for GPT-4o-mini and $0.27 for Llama Guard 4 12B.

Best Fit

Choose GPT-4o-mini when you care most about lower input-token price.

Choose Llama Guard 4 12B when you care most about lower output-token price, and larger context window.

Decision Notes
  • On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Llama Guard 4 12B is estimated at $0.27 vs $0.45 for GPT-4o-mini, saving $0.18 (40% lower).
  • Llama Guard 4 12B is $0.18 cheaper on the standard workload (40% lower).
  • GPT-4o-mini is $0.03 cheaper per 1M input tokens (16.7% lower; 1.2x difference).
  • Llama Guard 4 12B is $0.42 cheaper per 1M output tokens (70% lower; 3.33x difference).
  • Llama Guard 4 12B has 35.84K more context (1.28x larger).
Head-to-Head Specs
Feature🔥GPT-4o-mini
(OpenAI)		Llama Guard 4 12B
(Meta)
Input Price
prompt tokens per 1M		$0.15$0.18
Completion Price
per 1M tokens		$0.6$0.18
Sample Workload Cost
1M input + 500K output		$0.45$0.27
Context Window128K163.84K
Release Date
Popularity#15#146

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Use caseBetter pickWhy
Budget-constrained productionLlama Guard 4 12BOn the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Llama Guard 4 12B is estimated at $0.27 vs $0.45 for GPT-4o-mini, saving $0.18 (40% lower).
High-volume input processingGPT-4o-miniLower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill.
Long responses and chatbotsLlama Guard 4 12BLower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens.
RAG or long-document workLlama Guard 4 12BA larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files.

Related Alternatives

Same-provider lower-cost swaps
  • gpt-oss-120b (free) can replace GPT-4o-mini when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
  • gpt-oss-20b (free) can replace GPT-4o-mini when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
  • gpt-oss-20b can replace GPT-4o-mini when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.1.
  • gpt-oss-120b can replace GPT-4o-mini when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.13.
Larger context near this budget
  • Llama 4 Scout offers 10M context with $0.23 sample workload cost.
  • Owl Alpha offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
  • MiMo-V2.5 offers 1.05M context with $0.28 sample workload cost.
  • DeepSeek V4 Flash offers 1.05M context with $0.2 sample workload cost.

Cheaper alternatives

Review low-cost models sorted by a standard 1M input plus 500K output workload.

Open cheapest models

Larger context alternatives

Find models with larger context windows for RAG, long documents, and codebase review.

Open largest context models

Provider catalogs

Compare models within provider hubs before choosing a final API vendor.

Open provider hubs

OpenAI catalog

Review all tracked OpenAI models before deciding whether this matchup is the right shortlist.

Open OpenAI models

Meta catalog

Check other Meta models with comparable pricing, context, or release timing.

Open Meta models
GPT-4o-mini

GPT-4o mini is OpenAI's newest model after [GPT-4 Omni](/models/openai/gpt-4o), supporting both text and image inputs with text outputs. As their most advanced small model, it is many multiples more affordable...

Llama Guard 4 12B

Llama Guard 4 is a Llama 4 Scout-derived multimodal pretrained model, fine-tuned for content safety classification. Similar to previous versions, it can be used to classify content in both LLM...