GPT-4o Search Preview
OpenAI · released Mar 12, 2025
- Type
- Closed
- Input
- $2.50
- Output
- $10.00
- Cached
- None held
List price · per 1M tokens · OpenAI at 128K context · machine-readable source ↗
Our take
Written Sep 2, 2026GPT-4o Search Preview is a hosted-only text model from OpenAI that grounds its answers with retrieved information. It handles up to 128,000 tokens in a single request and carries the same price tier as the standard GPT-4o family, though no benchmark scores are available to verify its performance.
Pick this when you need search-augmented generation inside OpenAI's ecosystem at the familiar GPT-4o price tier, or for long documents that need grounding with retrieved information within a 128,000-token limit. Skip it if you want verified quality scores, a cheaper option, or the ability to download and self-host.
The case for it
- Identical pricing across both tracked providers — no price arbitrage needed.
- 128,000-token request limit fits long documents that need search grounding.
The case against it
- No benchmark scores recorded — chat, reasoning, coding and multilingual performance are all unverified in our data.
- Premium output tier with no measured scores to confirm it matches the standard GPT-4o family.
How good is it?
We hold no score for this model.
So there is no figure here for everyday use, coding, agent work or writing. That is a gap in our data, not a low score.
Where to rent it
Prices checked between 2 hours and 2 months ago — each listing carries its own date.
OpenAI, direct
The lab is also the cheapest we hold. The strip above and this offer are the same one, so nothing on this page undercuts OpenAI on 128K of context.
- per 1M tokens
- $2.50 in / $10.00 out
- Context served
- 128K
- Throughput
- Not measured
| Provider | In / out per 1M tokens | Context | Throughput | Trains on prompts | Logs prompts | Zero retention |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenRouterOpenRouter's own listing | $2.50 / $10.00checked 2 months ago | 128K | not measured | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| OpenAIDirect | $2.50 / $10.00checked 2 hours ago | 128K16K max reply | not measured | No | Yesunknown period | Unknown |
OpenRouterAcross the 2 listings we hold: 1 says it does not train on prompts, 0 say they do and 1 does not say. 0 appear in the zero-retention registry we check; the rest are unknown to us.
What each host's API supports
From the parameter list each endpoint publishes. Streaming is omitted: nothing we hold reports it, for any model.
| Provider | Tool calling | JSON output | Strict schema |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenRouterOpenRouter's own listing | |||
| OpenAIDirect |
Tool calling: 0 of 2 listings say yes, 2 publish no parameter list. JSON output: 0 of 2 listings say yes, 2 publish no parameter list. Strict schema: 0 of 2 listings say yes, 2 publish no parameter list.
When we formed this view
Recent changes
What moved
first indexed by our pipelineEach date is the day we first saw the change, or the day the maker announced it.
What we do not know about this model yet
- No independent board has scored it, so we hold no quality figures at all.
- 2 of 2 listings publish no parameter list, so what their API accepts is unknown to us.
- Nothing we hold says whether an endpoint streams, so we do not show it either way.
- 1 of 2 listings does not say whether it trains on prompts.
- We hold no cached-input rate for any of its listings.
- We hold no batch or off-peak rate for any of its listings.
Licence and identifiers
What the licence allowsWe hold no licence record for this model. Inside are the identifiers you need to pull it — its Hugging Face repo where we have one, our slug and a machine-readable card.
Licence
We hold no licence record for this model, and no record of published weights either — so we can neither summarise its terms nor point you at the weights.
Identifiers
- Takes in, gives back
- Text in, text out
- Catalogue slug
- openai-gpt-4o-search-preview