Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Granite 4.2 8B?

On accuracy they are statistically tied: Granite 4.0 Micro scored 25.0% and Granite 4.2 8B 36.2% on the same 80 questions from open datasets. Similar accuracy; Granite 4.0 Micro costs less per question.

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Granite 4.2 8B?

Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper: $0.000051 per question as billed, against $0.000077. List prices: Granite 4.0 Micro $0.017 in / $0.112 out, Granite 4.2 8B $0.06 in / $0.25 out per million tokens.

Which is faster, Granite 4.0 Micro or Granite 4.2 8B?

Granite 4.2 8B is faster at 60 output tokens per second, against 38. Time to first token: 0.7 s for Granite 4.0 Micro, 0.6 s for Granite 4.2 8B.

Which has the larger context window, Granite 4.0 Micro or Granite 4.2 8B?

Both accept about the same amount of context: 131k and 131k tokens.

Head to head · tested 27 Oct 2026

Granite 4.0 Micro vs Granite 4.2 8B: accuracy, speed and price

Similar accuracy; Granite 4.0 Micro costs less per question.

IBMGranite 4.0 Micro25.0% score · #69$0.000051 per question38 tok/s

IBMGranite 4.2 8B36.2% score · #60$0.000077 per question60 tok/s

Verdict

Built from the measurements below

Accuracy is too close to call: Granite 4.0 Micro scored 25.0% and Granite 4.2 8B 36.2% on the same 80 questions, a gap within what chance alone could produce.
Granite 4.0 Micro is 1.5× cheaper per question as billed ($0.000051 vs $0.000077), reasoning tokens included.
Granite 4.2 8B generates text 1.6× faster: 60 tokens per second against 38.
Granite 4.2 8B starts answering sooner: 0.6 s to the first token, against 0.7 s for Granite 4.0 Micro.

Which should you choose?

Choose Granite 4.2 8B for faster streaming, a quicker first token and shorter outputs (about 227 tokens per question against 403). The widest subject gap is in economics: Granite 4.2 8B answered 5 of 9 correctly, Granite 4.0 Micro 2 of 9. With so few questions per subject, treat this as a lead to test on your own prompts, not a result.

Accuracy gap -11.2 points (z = -1.54). A winner is called only when z is at least 1.96, the usual 95% threshold. Speed, latency and price need a 10% margin.

Head to head

Same questions, same prompt, same API

Measure	Granite 4.0 Micro	Granite 4.2 8B	Edge
Verification scoreHigher is better	25.0%	36.2%	Too close to call
Cost per questionLower is better	$0.000051	$0.000077	Granite 4.0 Micro
Output speedHigher is better	38	60	Granite 4.2 8B
Time to first tokenLower is better	0.7 s	0.6 s	Granite 4.2 8B
End-to-end response timeLower is better	8.9 s	7.3 s	Granite 4.2 8B
Tokens per questionLower is better	403	227	Granite 4.2 8B
Context windowHigher is better	131k	131k	Similar

Side by side

Bars are scaled to the larger of the two values. The winner on each measure is marked in bold.

Every measure

Granite 4.0 Micro first, Granite 4.2 8B second

Verification scorehigher is better

Granite 4.0 Micro25.0%

Granite 4.2 8B36.2%

Cost per questionlower is better

Granite 4.0 Micro$0.000051

Granite 4.2 8B$0.000077

Output speedhigher is better

Granite 4.0 Micro38

Granite 4.2 8B60

Time to first tokenlower is better

Granite 4.0 Micro0.7 s

Granite 4.2 8B0.6 s

End-to-end response timelower is better

Granite 4.0 Micro8.9 s

Granite 4.2 8B7.3 s

Tokens per questionlower is better

Granite 4.0 Micro403

Granite 4.2 8B227

Context windowhigher is better

Granite 4.0 Micro131k

Granite 4.2 8B131k

Score vs. cost per question

Both models in color, every other model in grey

Results by subject and dataset

Questions answered correctly. Small samples: a gap of one or two questions is noise.

Subject	Questions	Granite 4.0 Micro	Granite 4.2 8B
Science	30	7/30	13/30
Engineering	15	1/15	4/15
Medicine	11	4/11	1/11
Economics	9	2/9	5/9
Law	6	1/6	2/6
Humanities & social science	9	5/9	4/9
SuperGPQA dataset	50	8/50	11/50
MMLU-Pro dataset	30	12/30	18/30

Specifications and pricing

From OpenRouter's catalogue, plus the leaderboard's test dates

Specification	Granite 4.0 Micro	Granite 4.2 8B
Creator	IBM	IBM
Released	20 Oct 2025	31 Aug 2026
Weights	Open weights	Open weights
Reasoning	No	Yes
Input	text	text
Output	text	text
Context window	131k tokens	131k tokens
Knowledge cutoff	—	—
List price in / out per 1M	$0.017 / $0.112	$0.06 / $0.25
Blended price per 1M (3:1)	$0.04	$0.11
Cheapest host	Cloudflare · $0.017 / $0.112	CoreWeave · $0.06 / $0.15
Hosts on OpenRouter	1	2
Last tested	26 Oct 2026	26 Oct 2026

Compare any two models →

Granite 4.0 Micro vs Granite 4.2 8B: frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Granite 4.2 8B?: On accuracy they are statistically tied: Granite 4.0 Micro scored 25.0% and Granite 4.2 8B 36.2% on the same 80 questions from open datasets. Similar accuracy; Granite 4.0 Micro costs less per question.
Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Granite 4.2 8B?: Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper: $0.000051 per question as billed, against $0.000077. List prices: Granite 4.0 Micro $0.017 in / $0.112 out, Granite 4.2 8B $0.06 in / $0.25 out per million tokens.
Which is faster, Granite 4.0 Micro or Granite 4.2 8B?: Granite 4.2 8B is faster at 60 output tokens per second, against 38. Time to first token: 0.7 s for Granite 4.0 Micro, 0.6 s for Granite 4.2 8B.
Which has the larger context window, Granite 4.0 Micro or Granite 4.2 8B?: Both accept about the same amount of context: 131k and 131k tokens.