BALANCED FRONTIERPRICE CUT -20%GPT-5.6 FAMILY1.05M CONTEXTTEXT + VISIONPROMPT CACHING
GPT-5.6 Terra API Pricing
GPT-5.6 Terra is OpenAI's middle GPT-5.6 tier for production agents that need frontier behavior below Sol pricing: $2/M input, $12/M output, and $0.20/M cached input. OpenAI cut GPT-5.6 prices on July 30, 2026, about three weeks after the family shipped: Luna fell 80%, Terra 20%, and Sol was left unchanged. Terra's 20% cut is the smaller of the two — Luna's 80% is what reshaped the family. Pulled directly from developers.openai.com daily.
Input - per 1M tokens
$2.00/M
Short context up to 272K input standard
Output - per 1M tokens
$12.00/M
Long context output is $18/M standard
Cached input - 90% off
$0.20/M
Prompt cache read price -90%
Effective - agentic blend
$1.52/M
92/8 split - 82% cache
§ 01 / TERMINAL
Run the numbers.
Live calculator pre-loaded with current GPT-5.6 Terra standard short-context rates. Tweak spend, output mix, or cache hit rate; share the URL to share the calculation.
$ /mo
Workload split
Prompt cache hit rate
Tokens you can process
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Words equivalent (English)
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Effective rate
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§ 02 / SCENARIOS
Real-world presets.
CODING AGENT
Repo-wide feature build
$0.218/task
RESEARCH
Market analysis brief
$0.085/brief
LONG DOC ANALYSIS
Reading 150-page contracts
$0.243/doc
RAG - SUPPORT
Premium support ticket
$0.025/ticket
§ 03 / TOKENIZER
Paste text. See tokens. See cost.
Exact · o200k_base Auto-counts as you type
Counted with the o200k_base BPE encoding — the same tokenizer the API uses — entirely in your browser. The encoder loads on your first keystroke (~1 MB, one time); your text never leaves this page.
Characters 608
Words 94
Tokens (exact) 153 tokens
Cost as input · uncached $0.00031 USD
Cost as output · uncached $0.00184 USD
Cost as cached input $0.00003 USD
| Model | Input /M | Output /M | Effective blended | Context | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.6 Sol | $4.00 cache $0.40 | $20.00 | $2.73 same blend | 1.05M | Highest-accuracy GPT-5.6 preview |
| GPT-5.6 Terra Current | $2.00 cache $0.20 | $12.00 | $1.52 agentic 92/8 | 1.05M | Balanced GPT-5.6 preview agents |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | $0.20 cache $0.02 | $1.20 | $0.152 same blend | 1.05M | Cheapest GPT-5.6 preview routing |
| GPT-5.5 | $5.00 cache $0.50 | $30.00 | $3.61 same blend | 1M | Current broadly available OpenAI flagship |
| GPT-5.4 | $2.50 cache $0.25 | $15.00 | $1.80 same blend | 1.05M | Broadly available balanced OpenAI tier |
| GPT-5.4 mini | $0.75 cache $0.075 | $4.50 | $0.541 same blend | 400K | Lower-cost OpenAI subagents |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | $5.00 cache $0.50 | $25.00 | $3.41 same blend | 1M | Anthropic Opus frontier alternative |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | $1.50 cache $0.15 | $9.00 | $1.08 same blend | 1M | Google multimodal context alternative |
Compare siblings
Frequently asked.
Practical GPT-5.6 Terra pricing questions, with OpenAI's published rates separated from workload assumptions.
Q · 01 How much does GPT-5.6 Terra cost? +
OpenAI lists GPT-5.6 Terra at $2/M input tokens, $0.20/M cached input tokens, $2.50/M cache writes and $12/M output tokens in the standard short-context tier — down 20% from the $2.50/$0.25/$15 launch rates. Verified on OpenAI's pricing docs 2026-08-02.
Q · 02 Is GPT-5.6 Terra generally available? +
Yes. OpenAI made the GPT-5.6 series (Sol, Terra, Luna) generally available on July 9, 2026 across ChatGPT, Codex, and the API, after an initial limited preview that opened June 26, 2026.
Q · 03 What is the context window? +
OpenAI's model docs list a
1.05M-token context window and 128K max output for GPT-5.6 Terra, with a stated knowledge cutoff of February 16, 2026.Q · 04 How much cheaper are Batch and Flex? +
OpenAI lists Batch and Flex for GPT-5.6 Terra at half the standard short-context rate: $1/M input, $0.10/M cached input, and $6/M output. Priority is $4/M input, $0.40/M cached input, and $24/M output. All four tiers moved with the July 30 cut.
Q · 05 When does long-context pricing apply? +
For requests above
272K input tokens, GPT-5.6 Terra uses the long-context tier: $4/M input, $0.40/M cached input, and $18/M output — double the standard input rate and 1.5x the standard output rate. The calculator on this page uses the standard short-context tier.Q · 06 Which GPT-5.6 tier should I choose? +
Use Sol for the hardest tasks, Terra for balanced agent workloads, and Luna for lower-cost routing or high-volume production. In the shared 92/8 agentic blend with 82% cache hits, Sol lands near
$3.81/M, Terra near $1.52/M, and Luna near $0.15/M — after the July 30 cut, Luna is 25x cheaper than Sol rather than the 5x it was at launch, which changes the routing maths more than the headline discount suggests.