Solar Pro 4 vs GPT-5 mini
Side-by-side comparison of API pricing, specs, benchmarks, and capabilities
| Specification |
Solar Pro 4Intro price
by Upstage
|
by OpenAI
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Status | Current mid tier | Current mid tier |
| Released | Aug 11, 2026 | Aug 7, 2025 |
| Pricing per million tokens | ||
| Input | $0.030/Mtok | $0.250/Mtok |
| Output | $0.120/Mtok | $2.00/Mtok |
| Blended avg | $0.052/Mtok | $0.688/Mtok |
| Cached input | $0.006/Mtok | $0.025/Mtok |
| Price basis | Launch/intro pricing, per 1M tokens. Upstage's own rate card (upstage.ai/pricing/api) prints BOTH prices side by side for this SKU with the terms "90% off until 2026-09-10 (UTC). Standard pricing applies from 2026-09-11 (UTC)": input $0.30 -> $0.03, cached input $0.06 -> $0.006, output $1.20 -> $0.12. The tracked figures are the CURRENT EFFECTIVE discounted rates; on 2026-09-11 this record reverts to the $0.30/$0.06/$1.20 standard list price — a tracked price increase, watched by promo_until. Re-verified 2026-08-13: the rate card still shows the discount live and Upstage has NOT extended it. The page carries the discount as a dated phase table ("Solar Pro 4 — Promotional Pricing Phases", v1.2 of 2026-08-06) whose discount phase ends 2026-09-11T00:00:00Z and whose standard prices $0.30/$0.06/$1.20 are the ones baked into the card markup, so the vendor's own fallback when the promo lapses IS the standard rate. Upstage's launch post adds that the same discount runs on "Upstage Console and OpenRouter", which is why the gateway number also sits 10x under the standard list price and must not be read as one. Upstage lists all prices exclusive of 10% VAT. | — |
| Specifications | ||
| Context window | 524K tokens | 400K tokens |
| Parameters | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Speed (TPS) | — | — |
| Modalities | ||
| Input |
text
|
textimage
|
| Benchmarks sources: Artificial Analysis, LMSYS Chatbot Arena (UC Berkeley), Upstage Solar Pro 4 launch blog / Artificial Analysis | ||
| Independent composite scores measured for both models — each on its own scale | ||
| AA Intelligence Index | 42 | 25.8 |
| AA Agentic Index | — | 19.6 |
| AA-Omniscience Index (−100–100) | — | -17.3 |
| LMSYS Chatbot Arena | 1376 ELO | — |
| Per-benchmark results published for Solar Pro 4 only — no independent per-benchmark scores exist for GPT-5 mini yet | ||
| Avg benchmark score | 57 | — |
| Perf / dollar | 1085.7 | — |
| GPQA Diamond | 89 vendor | — |
| SWE-Bench Verified | 70.6 vendor | — |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 57 | — |
| LiveCodeBench | 87.8 vendor | — |
| MCP Atlas | 61.4 vendor | — |
| BrowseComp | 49.2 vendor | — |
| Providers | ||
| Available from |
Upstage — $0.030/$0.120/Mtok
|
OpenAI — $0.250/$2.00/Mtok
|
Cost at scale
1M tokens · 50/50 input/output| Volume | Solar Pro 4 | GPT-5 mini | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M tokens | $0.05 | $0.69 | $0.64 (93.1%) |
| 10M tokens | $0.53 | $6.88 | $6.35 (92.4%) |
| 100M tokens | $5.25 | $68.75 | $63.5 (92.4%) |
| 1000M tokens | $52.5 | $687.5 | $635 (92.4%) |
When to pick which
distilled from the pricing and spec data above- cost dominates: $0.052/Mtok blended vs $0.688 — 92.4% less on the same 50/50 token mix
- you need the longer context: 524K tokens vs 400K (1.3×)
- your workload re-reads context (agents, RAG, long chats): cached input costs $0.025/Mtok — 90% off its list input price
Summary
Solar Pro 4 by Upstage costs $0.030/Mtok input and $0.120/Mtok output, with a 524K-token context window. It supports text input.
GPT-5 mini by OpenAI costs $0.250/Mtok input and $2.00/Mtok output, with a 400K-token context window. It supports text, image input.
On a blended cost basis, Solar Pro 4 is 92.4% cheaper than GPT-5 mini.It also has a larger context window.
The two aren't directly comparable on average benchmark score: Solar Pro 4 has published per-benchmark results, while GPT-5 mini does not yet — it is measured today on independent composites (see the table above).
Note: Pricing is per million tokens. Actual costs vary with usage patterns, prompt caching, and batch discounts. Always verify against official provider pricing pages.