By the toolist.ai editors. Researched from public sources, not hands-on tested by toolist.ai. Updated October 13, 2026; prices checked October 13, 2026.

Gemini 4 Argon vs GPT-6 Astra

Verdict

Gemini 4 Argon is the better buy. It scores within 0.1 point of GPT-6 Astra on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (52.6 against 52.7) at a fifth of Astra's token price until November 30, 2026 ($2 and $10 per million against $10 and $50), and two-fifths of it once Argon's price doubles on December 1. Argon also scores higher on four of the six benchmarks both have, including the Coding Agent Index (63.8 against 61.6) and GDPval-AA (1624 against 1572 Elo). Astra leads on Terminal-Bench 4.0 (59.1% against 57.1%).

Verdict based on published prices, limits and benchmarks, not on our own tests.

Choose Gemini 4 Argon if

  • Cost: the support chatbot workload costs $1,000 a month on Argon against $5,000 on Astra at today's prices
  • You run coding agents (63.8 against 61.6 on the Coding Agent Index) or knowledge work (1624 against 1572 Elo on GDPval-AA)
  • You send video or audio input; GPT-6 Astra accepts neither
  • You build in Google AI Studio or on Google Cloud

Choose GPT-6 Astra if

  • Your work is terminal-heavy (59.1% against 57.1% on Terminal-Bench 4.0)
  • You need up to 128,000 output tokens in a normal request; Argon stops at 65,536 unless you use long decode
  • You use ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu, which include GPT-6 Astra
  • You want OpenAI's Fast or Ultrafast modes, at two and six times the standard price

Price

Input costs 5 times as much on GPT-6 Astra as on Gemini 4 Argon. Output costs 5 times as much on GPT-6 Astra as on Gemini 4 Argon.

Per million tokensGemini 4 ArgonGPT-6 Astra
Input$2 source$10 source
Cached input$0.10 source$1 source
Output$10 source$50 source

Gemini 4 Argon: Introductory prices run through November 30, 2026; from December 1, 2026 input costs $4, output $20 and cached input $0.20 per million tokens. Output includes thinking tokens. Caching is implicit only; explicit caching is not supported. There is no long-context surcharge. Batch and Flex cost half; Priority costs 1.8 times the standard price. Grounding with Google Search and with Google Maps each has 5,000 free requests a month shared across Gemini 3 and newer models, then $14 per 1,000. Not available on the free tier.

GPT-6 Astra: Prompts over 272,000 input tokens are billed at twice the input rate and 1.5 times the output rate for the whole request. Batch and Flex cost half; Fast mode costs double and Ultrafast six times.

Worked example: what a month costs

We priced three monthly workloads at the standard rates. The provider does not publish these figures.

WorkloadGemini 4 ArgonGPT-6 Astra
Support chatbot
100,000 replies, each 3,000 input and 400 output tokens, no caching (300M in, 40M out)		 $1,000$5,000
Document Q&A
5,000 questions over the same 60,000-token document set (90% cache hits), 800 output tokens each (300M in, 4M out)		 $127$770
Coding agent
200 tasks, each 1.5 million input tokens (90% cache hits) and 50,000 output tokens (300M in, 10M out)		 $187$1,070

Price your own workload

ModelCost a month
Gemini 4 Argon $150
GPT-6 Astra $750

Standard API prices, no batch or priority discounts. Cached input is billed at the cache-read price; cache-write charges are not included. Reasoning models bill their thinking as output tokens.

Limits and release dates

Gemini 4 ArgonGPT-6 Astra
ReleasedOctober 13, 2026 sourceSeptember 3, 2026 source
Context window1,048,576 tokens source1,050,000 tokens source
Maximum output65,536 tokens source128,000 tokens source
Knowledge cutoffMarch 2026 sourceApril 30, 2026 source
Input and outputText, images, video, audio and PDF in; text out sourceText and images in; text out source
API model namegemini-4-argongpt-6-astra

Benchmarks

Scores as published by the provider or measured by Artificial Analysis; higher is better. A dash means no score was published.

BenchmarkGemini 4 ArgonGPT-6 Astra
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 52.6 (high thinking, the highest level) source52.7 (max effort) source
Coding Agent Index 63.8 (Antigravity CLI harness, high thinking) source61.6 (Codex harness, max effort) source
Terminal-Bench 4.0 57.1% (high thinking) source59.1% (max effort) source
Humanity's Last Exam 57.1% (high thinking) source54.7% (max effort) source
GDPval-AA v2.1 (Elo) 1624 (high thinking) source1572 (max effort) source
SciCode 61.8% (high thinking) source56.5% (max effort) source
Intelligence Index at everyday effort –49.6 (medium effort; OpenAI publishes no default) source
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 –63.3% (max effort) source
GPQA Diamond –96.1% (max effort) source
Output speed –51.9 tokens/s (medium effort, OpenAI API) source

Benchmark and speed data from Artificial Analysis where linked.

Read more

Sources