# GPT-5.6 Sol Is $4/$20, Not $5/$30, and That Price Is Promotional Through at Least November 21

OpenAI's live rate card puts GPT-5.6 Sol at $4.00 input and $20.00 output per 1M tokens on short context, with a footnote most people scroll past: the promotional pricing is available "at least through November 21, 2026." No end date is published, and no post-promotional rate. If you are sizing a Sol workload into next year, you are sizing against a number OpenAI has reserved the right to move. Our own directory entry carried $5/$30 and has been corrected.

By Neomanex. Updated 2026-09-27.

## The verdict

Budget GPT-5.6 Sol at $4.00 in and $20.00 out per 1M tokens on short context. Then budget a second time for the day that number stops being true.

OpenAI's pricing docs carry a line next to Sol that changes how you should read the whole rate card: "GPT-5.6 Sol's promotional pricing is available at least through November 21, 2026." That is a floor, not a ceiling. There is no published end date, no published post-promotional rate, and no commitment beyond the floor.

Sol is still the most cost-effective frontier model on the board, and our [directory rating](/models/gpt-5-6-sol) does not move on this. What moves is your planning horizon.

The same rate card lists [GPT-6 Astra](/models/astra) at $10.00/$50.00 on short context, and shows that OpenAI's two Daybreak aliases currently resolve to Sol and [GPT-5.6-Cyber](/models/gpt-5-6-cyber). Both details are below.

## What happened

Nothing was announced. OpenAI's published rate card settles a price conflict we flagged and left open earlier this week, and it resolved in a direction we did not expect.

### The live rates

Per 1M tokens, `gpt-5.6-sol`:

| Mode | Short context | Long context |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $4.00 in / $20.00 out | $8.00 / $30.00 |
| Cached input | $0.40 | $0.80 |
| Cache writes | $5.00 | $10.00 |
| Batch | $2.00 / $10.00 | $4.00 / $15.00 |
| Flex | $2.00 / $10.00 | $4.00 / $15.00 |
| Fast | $8.00 / $40.00 | $16.00 / $60.00 |

Cached input at $0.40 is a tenth of the standard input rate. If your workload has a stable system prompt or a repeated document context, that line is worth more to your bill than the headline number is.

### The correction we owe you

Our directory entry for GPT-5.6 Sol stored $5 input and $30 output. That figure matches no row on the live card. It is not the short-context rate ($4/$20) and it is not the long-context rate ($8/$30). It was our error, not a vendor change, and the entry has since been corrected to $4/$20 short context and $8/$30 long.

We are saying that in the open because a directory that quietly fixes its own numbers is not a directory anyone should trust. If you priced a Sol migration off our page in the last few weeks, re-run it: your input cost is 20% lower than we told you, and your output cost is 33% lower on short context.

### What else was on the same page

Three things worth recording from the same rate card, because they are cheap to check now and expensive to discover later.

[GPT-6 Astra](/models/astra) holds at $10.00/$50.00 short context and $20.00/$75.00 long, unchanged from the figures in our [launch coverage](/news/gpt-6-astra-launch-pricing-benchmarks). Fast mode remains unavailable for Astra under EU data residency, per OpenAI's launch material.

`gpt-daybreak-blue-latest` and `gpt-daybreak-red-latest` are aliases, not models. Today they point at `gpt-5.6-sol` and [`gpt-5.6-cyber`](/models/gpt-5-6-cyber) respectively. They will re-point as OpenAI ships new Daybreak models, which means anyone pinned to an alias has agreed in advance to a model swap they will not be notified about.

## Why it matters

A promotional price with a published floor and no published ceiling is a different financial instrument from a list price, and it should be modelled differently.

The gap between $4/$20 and Sol's nearest non-promotional comparison is the size of the exposure. If Sol reverts toward the $5/$30 tier that [GPT-5.5](/models/gpt-5-5) still carries, a workload sized at today's rate gets 25% more expensive on input and 50% more expensive on output overnight. That is not a prediction. OpenAI has published no post-promotional rate at all, so any number you assume is your own invention. The honest planning assumption is that the rate is unknown after November 21 and that you will get little warning.

The second-order problem is worse for teams that have already committed. Frontier model pricing has moved down repeatedly this year, which trains everyone to treat the direction of travel as permanent. A promotion with a stated floor date is OpenAI telling you, in writing, that this particular decline has an expiry attached.

## What changes for you

Re-price now, at the correct rate, and put a date in the calendar.

If you are running Sol today, the news is good and immediate: your real cost is lower than our page said. Recalculate against $4/$20, and check whether cached input at $0.40 applies to your traffic shape before you optimize anything else.

If you are planning a Sol commitment that runs past November, do not build the model on $4/$20 alone. Build it twice, once at the promotional rate and once at a rate you would still accept, and know in advance which of your workloads you would move if the price changed. The models most exposed are the high-output ones, because the output side of the card is where the headroom sits.

And if you are pinned to a Daybreak alias, unpin. An alias that re-points on OpenAI's schedule is a pricing and capability change you have pre-authorized.


## FAQ

**What is the promotional price, exactly?**

$4.00 input and $20.00 output per 1M tokens on short context, $8.00/$30.00 on long context. Cached input is $0.40 short context and $0.80 long. Batch and Flex both halve the standard rate.

**What happens on November 21, 2026?**

Unknown, and that is the point. OpenAI publishes the date as a floor ("at least through November 21, 2026"), not an end date. There is no published expiry and no published post-promotional rate, so any number you plug in after that date is your own assumption, not OpenAI's.

**Was the $5/$30 figure a price cut, then?**

No. $5/$30 was our directory error. It matched no row on the live card, neither the short-context rate nor the long-context one. Nothing changed on OpenAI's side between our entry and this pull.

**Should I pin to gpt-daybreak-blue-latest or gpt-daybreak-red-latest?**

No. Those are aliases, not models. Today they point at `gpt-5.6-sol` and `gpt-5.6-cyber`, and they re-point as OpenAI ships new Daybreak models. Pinning to one is pre-authorizing a model swap, with its own pricing, that you will not be notified about.

Canonical: https://neomanex.com/news/gpt-5-6-sol-promotional-pricing-november-2026