API cost decision in 10 seconds

🔥gpt-oss-120b vs 🔥Gemma 4 31B

Pick gpt-oss-120b for lower cost; pick Gemma 4 31B only if the larger context window matters more.

Pricing data updated: 2026-05-17T02:07:32Z Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output

Budget verdict

Pick gpt-oss-120b for lower cost; pick Gemma 4 31B only if the larger context window matters more.

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, gpt-oss-120b is estimated at $0.13 vs $0.3 for Gemma 4 31B, saving $0.17 (56.1% lower).

Cost-first pickgpt-oss-120b

Context-first pickGemma 4 31B

Sample savings$0.1756.1%

10x traffic gap$1.71

Gemma 4 31B has more context, but gpt-oss-120b saves $0.17 on the standard workload. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $1.71. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.

Cheaper input gpt-oss-120b $0.039 vs $0.12 / 1M

gpt-oss-120b is $0.08 cheaper per 1M input tokens (67.5% lower; 3.08x difference).

Cheaper output gpt-oss-120b $0.19 vs $0.37 / 1M

gpt-oss-120b is $0.18 cheaper per 1M output tokens (48.6% lower; 1.95x difference).

Larger context Gemma 4 31B 131.07K vs 262.14K

Gemma 4 31B has 131.07K more context (2x larger).

Sample workload gpt-oss-120b $0.13 vs $0.3

gpt-oss-120b is $0.17 cheaper on the standard workload (56.1% lower).

Estimate your workload cost

Your Workload Cost

Prices are normalized to USD per 1M tokens.

Monthly input tokens Monthly output tokens

gpt-oss-120b Calculating… Estimated API cost

Gemma 4 31B 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-oss-120b has the lower input price; gpt-oss-120b has the lower output price; Gemma 4 31B offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, gpt-oss-120b is cheaper for the standard workload.

For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $0.13 for gpt-oss-120b and $0.3 for Gemma 4 31B.

Best Fit

Choose gpt-oss-120b when you care most about lower input-token price, and lower output-token price.

Choose Gemma 4 31B when you care most about larger context window.

Decision Notes

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, gpt-oss-120b is estimated at $0.13 vs $0.3 for Gemma 4 31B, saving $0.17 (56.1% lower).
gpt-oss-120b is $0.17 cheaper on the standard workload (56.1% lower).
gpt-oss-120b is $0.08 cheaper per 1M input tokens (67.5% lower; 3.08x difference).
gpt-oss-120b is $0.18 cheaper per 1M output tokens (48.6% lower; 1.95x difference).
Gemma 4 31B has 131.07K more context (2x larger).

Head-to-Head Specs

Feature	🔥gpt-oss-120b (OpenAI)	🔥Gemma 4 31B (Google)
Input Price prompt tokens per 1M	$0.039	$0.12
Completion Price per 1M tokens	$0.19	$0.37
Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output	$0.13	$0.3
Context Window	131.07K	262.14K
Release Date	2025-08-05	2026-04-02
Popularity Rank current rank	#17	#18

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Use case	Better pick	Why
Budget-constrained production	gpt-oss-120b	On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, gpt-oss-120b is estimated at $0.13 vs $0.3 for Gemma 4 31B, saving $0.17 (56.1% lower).
High-volume input processing	gpt-oss-120b	Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill.
Long responses and chatbots	gpt-oss-120b	Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens.
RAG or long-document work	Gemma 4 31B	A 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-oss-120b when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
gpt-oss-20b (free) can replace gpt-oss-120b when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
gpt-oss-20b can replace gpt-oss-120b when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.1.
Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) can replace Gemma 4 31B when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.

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.
DeepSeek V4 Flash offers 1.05M context with $0.22 sample workload cost.
Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite offers 1.05M context with $0.3 sample workload cost.

Popular competitors

DeepSeek V4 Flash · DeepSeek · #1
Hy3 preview · Tencent · #2
Claude Sonnet 4.6 · Anthropic · #3
Owl Alpha · OpenRouter · #4

Cheaper alternatives

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Larger context alternatives

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OpenAI catalog

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Google catalog

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gpt-oss-120b

gpt-oss-120b is an open-weight, 117B-parameter Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) language model from OpenAI designed for high-reasoning, agentic, and general-purpose production use cases. It activates 5.1B parameters per forward pass and is optimized...

Gemma 4 31B

Gemma 4 31B Instruct is Google DeepMind's 30.7B dense multimodal model supporting text and image input with text output. Features a 256K token context window, configurable thinking/reasoning mode, native function...