Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct vs Qwen2.5 32B Instruct vs GPT-4o mini
GPT-4o mini comes out ahead, 56 to 44 and 43 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
MetaLlama-3.1-70B-Instruct
44/100- ECI125.9
- Price$0.72 / $0.72
- Context128K
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen2.5 32B Instruct
43/100- ECI128.5
- Price$0.70 / $2.80
- Context131K
- Our pick
OpenAIGPT-4o mini
56/100- ECI126.6
- Price$0.15 / $0.60
- Context128K
GPT-4o mini is our pick
GPT-4o mini is the better all-round choice, scoring 56/100 against Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct (44) and Qwen2.5 32B Instruct (43). It leads on price and inputs & features. Qwen2.5 32B Instruct wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityQwen2.5 32B InstructCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen2.5 32B Instruct 128.5 · GPT-4o mini 126.6 · Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct 125.9
- Lowest priceGPT-4o miniGPT-4o mini $0.263 · Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct $0.72 · Qwen2.5 32B Instruct $1.23 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextQwen2.5 32B InstructQwen2.5 32B Instruct 131,072 · Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct 128,000 · GPT-4o mini 128,000 tokens
- Widest inputsGPT-4o miniLlama-3.1-70B-Instruct: Text · Qwen2.5 32B Instruct: Text · GPT-4o mini: Text, Images, PDFs
- Self-hostingLlama-3.1-70B-Instruct and Qwen2.5 32B InstructPublishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct | Qwen2.5 32B Instruct | GPT-4o mini |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 48 | 51 | 49 |
| Price | 25% | 57 | 46 | 77 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 25 | 25 | 70 |
| Context window | 10% | 24 | 24 | 24 |
| Overall | 100% | 44/100 | 43/100 | 56/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Llama-3.1-70B-InstructMeta | Qwen2.5 32B InstructAlibaba (Qwen) | GPT-4o miniOpenAI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 125.9 | 128.5 (best) | 126.6 |
| ECI rank | #136 of 148 | #131 of 148 (best) | #135 of 148 |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 44.2% | 46.1% (best) | 37.7% |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics | — | — | 0.7% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 3.6% | 7.4% (best) | 6.9% |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | — | — | 8.3% |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.72 | $0.70 | $0.15 (best) |
| Output | $0.72 | $2.80 | $0.60 (best) |
| Cached input | — | — | $0.075 |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.72 | $1.23 | $0.263 (best) |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Median of 5 providers | Official Alibaba API | Official OpenAI API |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 128,000 tokens | 131,072 tokens (best) | 128,000 tokens |
| Max output | 4,096 tokens | 8,192 tokens | 16,384 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | No | Yes |
| PDFs | No | No | Yes |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No | Yes |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | Open | Proprietary |
| API model ID | — | qwen2-5-32b-instruct | gpt-4o-mini |
| API providers | 5 | 1 | 21 (best) |
| Released | Jul 23, 2024 | Sep 17, 2024 | Jul 18, 2024 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Dec 2023 | Apr 2024 | Sep 2023 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct$8.64
- Qwen2.5 32B Instruct$12.60
- GPT-4o mini$2.70
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct or GPT-4o mini?
GPT-4o mini is the better all-round choice, scoring 56/100 against Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct (44) and Qwen2.5 32B Instruct (43). It leads on price and inputs & features. Qwen2.5 32B Instruct wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct or GPT-4o mini?
GPT-4o mini is cheaper at $0.15 input / $0.60 output per million tokens (official OpenAI API price). Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct costs $0.72 input / $0.72 output per million tokens (median across 5 API providers); Qwen2.5 32B Instruct costs $0.70 input / $2.80 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.263 per million tokens for GPT-4o mini versus $0.72 for Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct (2.7× as much) and $1.23 for Qwen2.5 32B Instruct (4.7× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Qwen2.5 32B Instruct scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen2.5 32B Instruct 128.5 (#131 of 148), GPT-4o mini 126.6 (#135 of 148) and Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct 125.9 (#136 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (123.5–130.0 vs 120.5–128.5), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen2.5 32B Instruct 46.1%, Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct 44.2%, GPT-4o mini 37.7%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen2.5 32B Instruct 7.4%, GPT-4o mini 6.9%, Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct 3.6%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct and GPT-4o mini yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen2.5 32B Instruct has the largest context window at 131,072 tokens, against 128,000 for Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct and 128,000 for GPT-4o mini. Maximum output per response: Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct up to 4,096, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct up to 8,192, GPT-4o mini up to 16,384 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct accepts text; Qwen2.5 32B Instruct accepts text; GPT-4o mini accepts text, images and PDFs. GPT-4o mini handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct and Qwen2.5 32B Instruct publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; GPT-4o mini is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Qwen2.5 32B Instruct is the newest, released Sep 17, 2024. Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct came out Jul 23, 2024; GPT-4o mini came out Jul 18, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct Dec 2023, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct Apr 2024, GPT-4o mini Sep 2023.
How do you decide the winner?
Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.
Related comparisons
- Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct vs Nova ProAmazon · ECI 123.8
- Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct vs Claude Haiku 3.5Anthropic · ECI 127.2
- Qwen2.5 32B Instruct vs Mistral Large 2.1Mistral AI · ECI 128.5
- Qwen2.5 32B Instruct vs Llama-3.3-70B-InstructMeta · ECI 127.3
- Qwen2.5 32B Instruct vs Nova ProAmazon · ECI 123.8
- Qwen2.5 32B Instruct vs Claude Haiku 3.5Anthropic · ECI 127.2
