GPT-6.1 Sol wins on price ($2 vs $10/1M input). GPT-6 Astra wins on coding (99 vs 98). For most workflows, GPT-6.1 Sol is the stronger default — near-astra capability at sol pricing — openai's value pick.
The safest GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra default, the cheaper option worth trying first, and the specialist pick — before you read the detail below.
GPT-6.1 Sol is the strongest answer here for GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra — pick it when quality of output matters more than the $2.00/1M/1M input you pay for it.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the cheaper way in for GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra, at $2.00/1M/1M input against GPT-6.1 Sol's $2.00/1M/1M.
GPT-6 Astra is the fastest of these for GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra — worth it when latency is what the reader notices, not the last few points of reasoning depth.
GPT-6 Astra leads on coding with a score of 99 vs 98 for GPT-6.1 Sol.
GPT-6.1 Sol is cheaper at $2/1M input tokens vs $10/1M for GPT-6 Astra.
GPT-6.1 Sol is the stronger default for coding tasks.
Choose GPT-6.1 Sol for agentic coding and computer use when Astra's price is hard to justify. Its coding and research scores are what carry the recommendation here.
GPT-6 Astra earns its place when your work is mostly computer and browser use and long-horizon agentic coding, even though it loses the overall count here.
Both models serve different primary workflows — GPT-6.1 Sol for agentic coding and computer use when Astra's price is hard to justify, GPT-6 Astra for computer and browser use and long-horizon agentic coding — so running each where it has a clear edge often beats forcing one to do both.
Switch the scoring lens to see whether the GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra answer changes when cost, speed, or long-document depth leads the decision.
OpenAI / Balanced / Oct 10, 2026
Near-Astra capability at Sol pricing — OpenAI's value pick.
Ranks models by the broadest mix of coding, writing, research, and long-context usefulness.
You need it inside ordinary ChatGPT chats today, or your prompts regularly pass 272K tokens where the rate doubles.
Where the GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra recommendation shifts once you weigh price or latency differently.
Near-Astra capability at Sol pricing — OpenAI's value pick.
OpenAI's frontier answer to Fable 5.1 — computer-use and agentic-coding leader at $10/$50.
List prices and published scores — the numbers this page's pick is built from.
| Model | Input | Output | Est. month | Context | Speed | Coding | Writing | Research |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI | $2.00/1M | $10.00/1M | $40 | 1.1M tokens | Balanced | 98 | 94 | 97 |
| GPT-6 AstraOpenAI | $10.00/1M | $50.00/1M | $200 | 1.1M tokens | Deliberate | 99 | 97 | 100 |
Scores out of 100 — how we evaluate models. “Est. month” is 10M in / 2M out at list price: a ceiling, no discounts.
Why each one is on the shortlist for GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra, what it is genuinely good at, and where we would steer you away from it.
Ranked first here for GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra: 98/100 on coding, with the widest margin of anything in this line-up.
OpenAI's September 29, 2026 DevDay release — a Sol-tier reasoning model that OpenAI says comes close to GPT-6 Astra on agentic coding, computer use and professional work at one fifth of Astra's price.
You need it inside ordinary ChatGPT chats today, or your prompts regularly pass 272K tokens where the rate doubles.
OpenAI's best value for serious work. GPT-6.1 Sol replaces both GPT-6 Sol and, for most teams, GPT-6 Astra: independent testing has it a point behind Astra at a fifth of the list price. Pick Astra only when the last point of capability is worth five times the bill.
Full pricing, benchmark table and release notes on the GPT-6.1 Sol page.
Here for latency: it answers fastest of anything listed for GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra, at 99/100 on coding.
OpenAI's September 3, 2026 frontier release — the first GPT-6 model and OpenAI's answer to Claude Fable 5.1 two days earlier. State of the art on computer use (OSWorld 2.0 72.6% in ~47% less time than GPT-5.6 Sol), agentic coding (Terminal-Bench 4.0 57.9%), and frontier math (FrontierMath Tier 4 97.6%). $10/$50 per 1M tokens, 1.05M context, 128K output, knowledge cutoff April 30, 2026.
You are cost-sensitive or latency-bound — GPT-6.1 Sol is a fifth of the price — or you need it today in an Enterprise workspace, where it is off by default, or for offensive-security work, which it refuses outside OpenAI Daybreak.
The new computer-use and agentic-coding ceiling, and OpenAI's first model priced like a Mythos-class Claude. Astra beats Claude Fable 5.1 on Terminal-Bench 4.0 (57.9% vs 55.8%), Terminal-Bench Science (64.6% vs 52.6%) and FrontierMath Tier 4 (97.6% vs 87.8%), and it is the only model with a credible OSWorld 2.0 result above 70%. It loses to Fable 5.1 on Humanity's Last Exam and on Artificial Analysis's index, costs five times GPT-5.6 Sol, and ships without a SWE-bench number. If your work is computer use, browser agents or math, it is the pick; for everyday coding at scale, GPT-6.1 Sol at $2/$10 is the value default — OpenAI says it comes close to Astra at a fifth of the price.
Full pricing, benchmark table and release notes on the GPT-6 Astra page.
UseRightAI recommendations are based on practical decision factors people actually feel in day-to-day use.
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GPT-6.1 Sol wins on more of the categories we score — coding, research, reasoning — so it is the better default of the two. GPT-6 Astra is the better pick when your work is mostly computer and browser use and long-horizon agentic coding. Neither is universally "better": GPT-6.1 Sol is aimed at agentic coding and computer use when Astra's price is hard to justify, GPT-6 Astra at computer and browser use and long-horizon agentic coding.
GPT-6.1 Sol is cheaper at $2/1M input and $10/1M output. GPT-6 Astra costs $10/1M input and $50/1M output.
Both GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Astra have the same 1.05M context window.
GPT-6 Astra is better for coding with a score of 99 vs GPT-6.1 Sol's 98 (out of 100). Claude Opus 5.5 is the overall coding leader in this directory at 100/100.
GPT-6.1 Sol is faster with a balanced speed rating (score: 3) vs GPT-6 Astra's deliberate rating (score: 2). Speed matters most for interactive and high-throughput work; for batch jobs the GPT-6 Astra latency penalty is usually invisible.
Prompts above 272K input tokens are billed at $4/$15. At launch it was available in ChatGPT Work and Codex, not in regular ChatGPT conversations. Avoid it if you need it inside ordinary ChatGPT chats today, or your prompts regularly pass 272K tokens where the rate doubles. That is the main case for looking at GPT-6 Astra instead.
$10/$50 per 1M — two and a half times GPT-5.6 Sol's $4/$20 promotional rate, five times GPT-6.1 Sol's $2/$10, and the same premium as Claude Fable 5.1; Fast mode doubles it again. Trails Claude Fable 5.1 on Humanity's Last Exam with tools (57.2% vs 65.0%) and on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (61.2 vs 65.7). OpenAI published no SWE-bench Verified or SWE-bench Pro figure at launch, so it does not appear on our SWE-bench leaderboard. Avoid it if you are cost-sensitive or latency-bound — GPT-6.1 Sol is a fifth of the price — or you need it today in an Enterprise workspace, where it is off by default, or for offensive-security work, which it refuses outside OpenAI Daybreak. Against GPT-6.1 Sol specifically, the gap shows up most on coding (98 vs 99).
Take a moderate workload of 10M input and 2M output tokens a month. GPT-6.1 Sol runs $40.00 (at $2/1M in and $10/1M out); GPT-6 Astra runs $200.00 (at $10/1M in and $50/1M out). That is a $160.00/month difference — GPT-6.1 Sol is the cheaper of the two at this volume, and the gap scales linearly as you send more. Output tokens dominate the bill on both, so prompt length matters far less than response length.
Yes, and for most teams that beats picking one. A common split is GPT-6.1 Sol for agentic coding and computer use when Astra's price is hard to justify, with GPT-6 Astra handling computer and browser use and long-horizon agentic coding. Since GPT-6.1 Sol is both the stronger and the cheaper option here, a split mainly makes sense if GPT-6 Astra covers a capability you specifically need.