OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) vs XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free)
Neither wins outright: OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) is the pick when you need to fit long inputs in one request, XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) when cost matters at scale.
Monthly cost at list price for five common workloads. Token counts per unit are stated so you can scale them to your own traffic. A workload that does not fit a model's context window is marked rather than priced.
Workload (per month)
OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch)
XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free)
Difference
Customer-support chatbot
50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens)
$73.13
$0
XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) saves $73.13
RAG search over documents
20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens)
$67.50
$0
XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) saves $67.50
Coding / tool-using agent
2,000 tasks — each a multi-step task with tool calls and file context (60,000 in / 6,000 out tokens)
$72.00
$0
XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) saves $72.00
Batch summarisation
10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens)
$43.50
$0
XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) saves $43.50
Long-document analysis
500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens)
$21.00
$0
XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) saves $21.00
Capabilities side by side
Capability
OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch)
XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free)
What it lets you do
Tool / function calling
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
call your APIs and run agent loops
Structured output (JSON schema)
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
return JSON that validates against your schema
Reasoning / thinking mode
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
spend extra tokens thinking before answering hard problems
Image input
✓ Yes
—
read screenshots, charts and scanned pages
Audio input
—
—
take speech or audio directly
File / PDF input
✓ Yes
—
accept documents without your own parsing step
Image output
—
—
generate images, not just text
Built-in web search
✓ Yes
—
answer from live web results
Seed (reproducible sampling)
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
repeat a generation for tests and evals
Log-probabilities
—
—
read token confidence for classification and scoring
From each model's published parameters and input/output types. “—” means not advertised, not proven absent.
Price history
OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch): price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-08-07.
XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free): price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-10-17.
Which should you choose?
Choose OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) if…
you need to fit long inputs in one request — 400K tokens is roughly 600 pages, against 393
you need image input — to read screenshots, charts and scanned pages; XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) does not advertise it
you need file / PDF input — to accept documents without your own parsing step; XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) does not advertise it
you need built-in web search — to answer from live web results; XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) does not advertise it
Choose XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) if…
cost matters at scale — it is 100% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($0 vs $73.13 a month for 50,000 support chats)
you generate long outputs in one go — up to 236K tokens (about 176,900 words) per response
you want to prototype at zero cost — a free variant is listed
you want the newer model — released 2026-10-16, 7 months after the other
Frequently asked questions
Is OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) better than XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free)?
Neither wins outright: OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) is the pick when you need to fit long inputs in one request, XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) when cost matters at scale. In short: OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) when you need to fit long inputs in one request, you need image input, you need file / PDF input, you need built-in web search; XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) when cost matters at scale, you generate long outputs in one go, you want to prototype at zero cost, you want the newer model.
Which is cheaper, OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) or XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free)?
XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) is cheaper: $0 vs $0.84 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 100% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $0 against $73.13.
How much do OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) and XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) cost per million tokens?
OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) costs $0.38 per 1M input tokens and $2.25 per 1M output tokens; XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) costs $0 input and $0 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) or XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free)?
OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch): 400K tokens, about 600 pages, against 262K (about 393 pages) for XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free).
Do OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) and XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) support function calling and JSON output?
Can OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) or XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) read images?
Only OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) accepts image input; XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) is text-only for input.
Is OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) or XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) free to use?
XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) has a free variant (xingchen-agi/xing4.0-29b-a4b:free). Free variants usually carry tighter rate limits.
What is the maximum output length of OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) and XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free)?
OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) can write up to 128K tokens (about 96,000 words) per response; XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) up to 236K (about 176,900 words).
When were OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) and XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) released?
OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Mini (batch) was listed on 2026-03-17; XingChen: Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) on 2026-10-16.
GPT-5.4 mini brings the core capabilities of GPT-5.4 to a faster, more efficient model optimized for high-throughput workloads. It supports text and image inputs with strong performance across reasoning, coding,...
Xing4.0-29B-A4B is an open-weight mixture-of-experts language model from China Telecom's AI team (TeleAI) and the successor to the TeleChat series. It has 29B total parameters with 4B active per token...