GPT-5.6 Sol drops to conditional: GPT-6 Sol lists at half the price
- What happened
- OpenAI lists GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6.1 Sol at $2/$10 per 1M tokens, against GPT-5.6 Sol's promotional $4/$20.
- Why it matters
- GPT-5.6 Sol is no longer the best-value OpenAI frontier pick, and its $4/$20 rate is promotional through at least 21 November 2026.
- What to do
- Keep GPT-5.6 Sol on validated pipelines, run your evals on GPT-6 Sol before 21 November, and test GPT-6 Sol first for new workloads.
Verdict: GPT-5.6 Sol moves from recommended to conditional. It is no longer the value pick. New workloads should test GPT-6 Sol first; GPT-6.1 Sol lists at the same price.
What happened
OpenAI's API pricing page and changelog, read on 31 October 2026, show:
- GPT-6 Sol lists at $2 input / $10 output per 1M tokens for prompts up to 272K tokens. The changelog dates its release to 22 September 2026.
- GPT-6.1 Sol also lists at $2 / $10.
- GPT-5.6 Sol lists at $4 / $20. OpenAI states this is promotional pricing, available at least through 21 November 2026.
The changelog carries no deprecation notice for any of these models.
Why it matters
On 23 September we held GPT-5.6 Sol at recommended. Its coding lead had third-party backing, while every GPT-6 Sol score was OpenAI's own. That reasoning still holds for teams already running GPT-5.6 Sol on validated evals.
It no longer holds for new deployments chosen on price. The successor costs half per token, and GPT-5.6 Sol's own $4/$20 rate is promotional, so OpenAI guarantees it only through 21 November 2026.
What we have not tested: we have not benchmarked GPT-6 Sol or GPT-6.1 Sol ourselves, and we record no absolute scores for GPT-6.1 Sol. We make no claim that GPT-6 Sol matches GPT-5.6 Sol on coding. Both successors stay conditional in our directory for that reason.
What changes for you
- Already on GPT-5.6 Sol with validated evals: nothing forces a move. Run those evals on GPT-6 Sol before 21 November 2026, when the promotional window can close.
- Starting new work: test GPT-6 Sol at $2/$10 first, and keep GPT-5.6 Sol as the fallback only if your evals show a coding gap.
GPT-5.6 Sol
OpenAI lists GPT-6 Sol at $2/$10 per 1M tokens against GPT-5.6 Sol's promotional $4/$20. The successor's scores are vendor-run, but the price gap decides new deployments.
What to do
- 1 Teams on GPT-5.6 Sol with validated evals: run those evals on GPT-6 Sol before 21 November 2026.
- 2 Teams starting new work: test GPT-6 Sol at $2/$10 per 1M tokens first.
Affected tools & models
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