By the toolist.ai editors. Researched from public sources, not hands-on tested by toolist.ai. Updated October 6, 2026; prices checked October 6, 2026.
GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra
Verdict
Pick GPT-6.1 Sol for most work. It costs one fifth of GPT-6 Astra per token ($1,000 against $5,000 a month for our support-chatbot workload) and sits within one point of Astra on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (51.8 against 52.7). Pay for Astra only when the hardest coding, terminal or science tasks justify five times the bill: it leads on Terminal-Bench 4.0, Humanity's Last Exam and Terminal-Bench-Science.
Verdict based on published prices, limits and benchmarks, not on our own tests.
Choose GPT-6.1 Sol if
- You run high volume and cost matters; Sol's input and output prices are a fifth of Astra's
- Your prompts repeat, since Sol's cached input costs $0.10 per million tokens against Astra's $1.00
- Your work looks like GDPval knowledge work, where Sol's Elo is higher (1575 against 1542)
Choose GPT-6 Astra if
- The task is a long, hard terminal or coding job (59.1% against 56.1% on Terminal-Bench 4.0)
- You work on science problems (63.3% against 58.1% on Terminal-Bench-Science)
- You need OpenAI's Ultrafast mode, which only Astra offers
Price
Input costs 5 times as much on GPT-6 Astra as on GPT-6.1 Sol. Output costs 5 times as much on GPT-6 Astra as on GPT-6.1 Sol.
| Per million tokens | GPT-6.1 Sol | GPT-6 Astra |
|---|---|---|
| Input | $2 source | $10 source |
| Cached input | $0.10 source | $1 source |
| Output | $10 source | $50 source |
GPT-6.1 Sol: 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 processing cost half; Fast mode costs double.
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.
| Workload | GPT-6.1 Sol | GPT-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
| Model | Cost a month |
|---|---|
| GPT-6.1 Sol | $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
| GPT-6.1 Sol | GPT-6 Astra | |
|---|---|---|
| Released | September 29, 2026 source | September 3, 2026 source |
| Context window | 1,050,000 tokens source | 1,050,000 tokens source |
| Maximum output | 128,000 tokens source | 128,000 tokens source |
| Knowledge cutoff | April 30, 2026 source | April 30, 2026 source |
| Input and output | Text and images in; text out source | Text and images in; text out source |
| API model name | gpt-6.1-sol | gpt-6-astra |
Benchmarks
Scores as published by the provider or measured by Artificial Analysis; higher is better. A dash means no score was published.
| Benchmark | GPT-6.1 Sol | GPT-6 Astra |
|---|---|---|
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index max effort | 51.8 source | 52.7 source |
| Intelligence Index at everyday effort | 47.8 (medium effort, the API default) source | 49.6 (medium effort; OpenAI publishes no default) source |
| Coding Agent Index Codex harness, max effort | 60.1 source | 61.6 source |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 max effort | 56.1% source | 59.1% source |
| Humanity's Last Exam max effort | 52.9% source | 54.7% source |
| GDPval-AA v2.1 (Elo) max effort | 1575 source | 1542 source |
| SciCode max effort | 54.2% source | 56.5% source |
| Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 max effort | 58.1% source | 63.3% source |
| GPQA Diamond | – | 96.1% (max effort) source |
| Output speed | 48.8 tokens/s (medium effort, OpenAI API) source | 50.9 tokens/s (medium effort, OpenAI API) source |
Benchmark and speed data from Artificial Analysis where linked.
Read more
- GPT-6.1 Sol: price, context window and benchmarks
- GPT-6 Astra: price, context window and benchmarks
- Claude Opus 5.5 vs GPT-6 Astra
- Claude Opus 5 vs GPT-6 Astra
- GPT-6.1 Sol vs Claude Opus 5.5
- GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Sol
- AI model API price table
Sources
- OpenAI API docs: GPT-6.1 Sol (checked 2026-10-06)
- OpenAI API docs: Pricing (checked 2026-10-06)
- OpenAI API docs: Changelog (checked 2026-10-06)
- OpenAI API docs: Reasoning models (checked 2026-10-06)
- OpenAI API docs: GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Sol (checked 2026-10-06)
- ChatGPT docs: Models (checked 2026-10-06)
- Artificial Analysis: GPT-6.1 Sol (max) (checked 2026-10-06)
- Artificial Analysis: GPT-6.1 Sol (medium) (checked 2026-10-06)
- Artificial Analysis: GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra (checked 2026-10-06)
- Artificial Analysis: Coding agents (checked 2026-10-06)
- OpenRouter: GPT-6.1 Sol (checked 2026-10-06)
- OpenAI API docs: GPT-6 Astra (checked 2026-10-06)
- OpenAI API docs: Using GPT-6 (checked 2026-10-06)
- ChatGPT docs: Pricing and plan access (checked 2026-10-06)
- Artificial Analysis: GPT-6 Astra (max) (checked 2026-10-06)
- Artificial Analysis: GPT-6 Astra (medium) (checked 2026-10-06)
- OpenRouter: GPT-6 Astra (checked 2026-10-06)