Which is cheaper, Llama 4 Maverick or GPT-5 mini?

Llama 4 Maverick is cheaper at the input + output rate combined: $2.00 versus $2.25 per million tokens.

Which has higher quality, Llama 4 Maverick or GPT-5 mini?

GPT-5 mini has the higher AA Intelligence Index score: 84 versus 80.

Can I switch between Llama 4 Maverick and GPT-5 mini via one API?

Both Llama 4 Maverick and GPT-5 mini are accessible through OpenRouter's unified gateway, which lets you switch models with one API key. Phase 2 of AIpricly will add scenario-routed automatic primary + fallback chains.

Llama 4 Maverick vs GPT-5 mini

Side-by-side pricing, capabilities, real-world cost across common scenarios, and our editorial pick.

Add a modelUp to 4 models can be compared

all prices in USD per 1M tokens

Llama 4 Maverick

Meta · released 2026-01-25

Quality (AA Index)80

Input price$0.50

Output price$1.50

Context256K

Throughput220 tok/s

P50 latency0.5s

View full pricing

OVERALL WINNER

GPT-5 mini

OpenAI · released 2026-01-15

Quality (AA Index)84

Input price$0.25

Output price$2.00

Context400K

Throughput280 tok/s

P50 latency0.3s

View full pricing

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Head-to-head specs

Green column = winner per metric

Metric	Llama 4 Maverick	GPT-5 mini	Verdict
Input price /1M tokens	$0.50	$0.25	GPT-5 mini −50%
Output price /1M tokens	$1.50	$2.00	Llama 4 Maverick −25%
Context window max input length	256K	400K	GPT-5 mini +1.6×
AA Quality AA Intelligence Index (0–100)	80	84	GPT-5 mini +4pt
Arena Elo LMArena human-pref Elo (800–2000)	—	—	Tied
Throughput tokens per second	220	280	GPT-5 mini +27%
P50 latency first token	0.5s	0.3s	GPT-5 mini −40%
Vision multimodal			Tied
Function calling tool use			Tied
Reasoning mode chain-of-thought	—

Monthly cost across common scenarios

Default usage assumptions

Scenario	Llama 4 Maverick	GPT-5 mini
customer support 1000K req · 600/180 tok	$570	$510
chat with docs 300K req · 4000/300 tok	$735	$480
code generation 500K req · 2000/500 tok	$875	$750
voice assistant 600K req · 800/200 tok	$420	$360

Our pick

For most workloads, choose GPT-5 mini.

50% cheaper input price, which compounds at scale
1.6× the context window — better for long documents and agents
27% faster throughput — matters for streaming UX and voice agents

GPT-5 family inheritance at a fraction of the cost — strong on routine tasks but visibly weaker on multi-step reasoning. Default choice when GPT-5 is overkill.

Choose Llama 4 Maverick instead if: Best open-weight alternative for self-hosted deployments. Quality lags closed-source frontier but cost-per-token via inference providers is the lowest in the table.

Read our deep analysis

The Cheapest LLM API for Production in 2026

Why pick? Use both with smart routing

Phase 2 · gateway with fallback chain

Set GPT-5 mini as primary, Llama 4 Maverick as fallback. One key, one bill, automatic failover when GPT-5 mini errors.

PHASE 2 PREVIEW · gateway not live yetThis endpoint does not exist yet. The gateway is in Phase 2 — what you see below is a design preview of the planned interface, not a live API. We will email subscribers when it launches.

Preview the planned API call

$ curl https://api.aipricly.com/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AIPC_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "routing": {
      "primary": "openai/gpt-5-mini",
      "fallback": ["meta/llama-4-maverick"]
    },
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "..."}]
  }'