OpenAI slashes GPT-4.1 API prices by up to 75% while offering superior coding performance and million-token context windows, triggering an industry-wide AI pricing war with Anthropic, Google, and xAI.
OpenAI released GPT-4.1 this morning, directly challenging competitors Anthropic, Google and xAI.By ramping up its coding and context-handling capabilities to a whopping one-million-token window and aggressively cutting API prices, GPT-4.1 is positioning itself as the go-to generative AI model. If you’re managing budgets or crafting code at scale, this pricing shake-up might just make your quarter.Performance upgrades at Costco prices
The new GPT-4.1 series boasts serious upgrades, including a 54.6% win rate on the SWE-bench coding benchmark, marking a considerable leap from prior versions. But the buzz isn’t just about better benchmarks. Real-world tests by Qodo.ai on actual GitHub pull requests showed GPT-4.1 beating Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet in 54.9% of cases, primarily thanks to fewer false positives and more precise, relevant code suggestions.
OpenAI’s new pricing structure—openly targeting affordability—might finally tip the scales for teams wary of runaway AI expenses:
The standout here? That generous 75% caching discount, effectively incentivizing developers to optimize prompt reuse—particularly beneficial for iterative coding and conversational agents.Feeling the heat
Anthropic’s Claude models have established their footing by balancing power and cost.
