GPT-5.6 Sol API Pricing
OpenAI · context window 1.1M · prices updated 2026-09-15
Where GPT-5.6 Sol sits on price
At $10.00 per million output tokens, GPT-5.6 Sol is a premium tier model — 4.8× the median output price of $2.08, which puts it cheaper than 22% and pricier than 78% of the models we track. It sits 58th cheapest of the 92 OpenAI models we track. Output costs 5.0× input, the usual spread — trim both, starting with the answer length.
Cached input is 90% cheaper. On an input-heavy workload you need roughly a 28% cache-hit rate to take 25% off the input line — reachable for chatbots and agents that resend the same system prompt and history.
What real workloads cost on GPT-5.6 Sol
These three workloads are the ones teams actually run on a premium-priced model — a $10.00/1M model is not bought for the same job as one ten times the price.
| Workload | Per request | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win. | $0.024 | $360 |
| Coding agent — 300 sessions/day (60K in / 12K out) Multi-step loops re-read the same files; caching matters more than raw price. | $0.24 | $2160 |
| Long-context analysis — 200 runs/day (250K in / 4K out) Only possible on large-context models; input cost is nearly the whole bill. | $0.54 | $3240 |
Model your exact traffic in the API cost calculator — it preloads GPT-5.6 Sol with caching and batch options.
GPT-5.6 Sol price history
OpenAI last cut GPT-5.6 Sol's output price on Aug 21, 2026 (-67% per output token), from $5.00/$30.00 to $2.00/$10.00 per 1M in/out. That is the only repricing in the 44 days we have tracked it — worth knowing before you hard-code today's rate into a budget.
| Date | Input /1M | Output /1M | Output change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 2, 2026 (tracking began) | $5.00 | $30.00 | — |
| Aug 21, 2026 | $2.00 | $10.00 | -67% |
Change-points from our daily price snapshots (tracking since Aug 2, 2026; intraday moves between snapshots are not captured).
GPT-5.6 Sol vs Claude Sonnet 5
The closest-priced alternative from another vendor is Claude Sonnet 5 (Anthropic) — priced within a rounding error on output, with identical input pricing. When two models land this close on price, the decision is quality on your own workload, not the price sheet: run 50 real requests through both and compare.
See Claude Sonnet 5 pricing →Cheaper alternatives
More OpenAI models
Frequently asked questions
› How much does the GPT-5.6 Sol API cost?
GPT-5.6 Sol costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.2 per million (90% cheaper). That works out to roughly 100,000 output tokens per dollar.
› What does the support chatbot workload cost on GPT-5.6 Sol?
Support chatbot — 500 conversations/day (5K in / 1.4K out) costs about $0.024 per request and $360 per month on GPT-5.6 Sol. Conversation history re-sent each turn — the classic prompt-caching win.
› What does it cost to fill GPT-5.6 Sol's 1.1M context window?
Sending 1.1M of input in a single request costs $2.10 at $2.00 per million tokens — before any output. With prompt caching that same fill drops to about $0.21 on repeat requests. This is why large context windows are cheap to advertise and expensive to actually use.
› Is GPT-5.6 Sol worth the price?
GPT-5.6 Sol sits in the middle of the market (58 of 92 by price within OpenAI). The honest test is a routing experiment: send the same 200 real requests to this model and to a tier below, and compare failure rate against the price gap — most teams find a majority of traffic never needed the pricier model.