GPT-6.1 Sol: OpenAI cuts the price to one-fifth
OpenAI pitches GPT-6.1 Sol as a cheaper route to Astra-class work. The absolute dollar figure stays unclear: the announcement page would not load.
In short
OpenAI is positioning GPT-6.1 Sol as a near-Astra model for coding, computer use and professional work priced at one-fifth of Astra's list rates for input and output tokens.
At a glance
- OpenAI says GPT-6.1 Sol costs one-fifth of Astra list rates for input and output tokens.
- OpenAI's announcement page returned HTTP 403 on two attempts, so absolute prices and benchmarks are unverified here.
- Predecessor GPT-6 Sol sits at 2 US dollars per million input and 10 US dollars per million output tokens, per heise online.
- Anthropic matched exactly those 2 and 10 US dollar rates with Claude Sonnet 5.5 on September 28, 2026.
- Sonnet 5.5 scores 70.6 percent on Terminal-Bench 4.0, against 10.3 percent for Sonnet 5.
OpenAI is positioning GPT-6.1 Sol as a near-Astra model for coding, computer use and professional work, priced at one-fifth of Astra's list rates for input and output tokens.
The claim on the table
The announcement copy names three target areas: coding, computer use and professional work. Note how the price is stated — as a ratio, not a rate. One-fifth of what Astra charges per million tokens puts Sol in the same bracket where Anthropic and the Chinese labs are currently competing for developer spend.
What we could not verify
OpenAI's announcement page was not retrievable for this report; two fetches returned HTTP 403. That leaves the absolute price per million tokens, the context window, the benchmark scores and the API availability date unconfirmed. The line above comes from the short announcement teaser, not from a source we read end to end. We will add the figures once the page responds.
Anthropic is already sitting in that bracket
heise online mapped the corridor on September 28, 2026: predecessor GPT-6 Sol charges 2 US dollars per million input tokens and 10 US dollars per million output tokens. Claude Sonnet 5.5 landed on those same two numbers, with cache reads at 0.20 US dollars per million tokens.
On Anthropic's own figures, Sonnet 5.5 reaches 70.6 percent on Terminal-Bench 4.0 where Sonnet 5 reaches 10.3 percent, and the pricier Opus 5.5 reaches 66.4 percent (Xhigh). On FrontierCode, Sonnet 5.5 comes in 10 points above Sonnet 5 at high compute. heise also notes OpenAI had halved prices for GPT-6 Sol and Luna shortly beforehand. Whether GPT-6.1 Sol was announced before or after Anthropic drew level cannot be dated without the source page.
Shipping surface matters as much as the rate card
A token price only bites where the model is actually served. GitHub made Claude Sonnet 5.5 generally available on September 28, 2026 across VS Code, Visual Studio, the Copilot CLI, the Copilot coding agent, github.com, GitHub Mobile, JetBrains IDEs, Xcode and Eclipse, billed at provider list pricing under usage-based billing. No comparable integration list exists for GPT-6.1 Sol while its announcement stays unreadable.
How to read this if you are budgeting
Do not convert the ratio into a rate. With no documented Astra list price in the sources we verified, one-fifth resolves to no number at all. The only firm anchor is the 2 and 10 US dollar corridor occupied by the predecessor and by Sonnet 5.5. Then look at consumption per task: GitHub reports Sonnet 5.5 using markedly fewer steps, tokens and tool calls for comparable results, and that shifts a monthly bill more than a headline rate does.
FAQ
How much does GPT-6.1 Sol cost per million tokens?
OpenAI gives only a ratio: one-fifth of Astra's list rates for input and output tokens. No absolute dollar figure is documented here, because the announcement page returned HTTP 403 twice. For reference, predecessor GPT-6 Sol costs 2 US dollars per million input tokens and 10 US dollars per million output tokens, according to heise online.
Is GPT-6.1 Sol cheaper than Claude Sonnet 5.5?
That cannot be calculated yet. Sonnet 5.5 charges 2 US dollars per million input tokens and 10 US dollars per million output tokens, level with GPT-6 Sol. The absolute price for GPT-6.1 Sol is missing as long as the OpenAI page stays unreachable.
Where can you use Claude Sonnet 5.5?
Per heise online, through the Claude platform, Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex AI and Microsoft Foundry. GitHub Copilot has carried it as generally available since September 28, 2026, including VS Code, Visual Studio, the Copilot CLI, JetBrains IDEs, Xcode and Eclipse.
