text model comparison
Gemini 3.8 Flash vs GPT-5.6 Terra
Gemini 3.8 Flash and GPT-5.6 Terra are both current text models, from Google and OpenAI. Gemini 3.8 Flash is 63% cheaper per 1M input tokens than GPT-5.6 Terra, $0.75 vs $2. On Arena Text, Gemini 3.8 Flash scores 1496 Elo and GPT-5.6 Terra 1467 Elo (Arena, measured October 28, 2026). Both accept about 1.05M tokens of context (1,050,000 and 1,048,576).
- Higher Arena Text
- Gemini 3.8 Flash1496 Elo against 1467 Elo
- Lower price per 1M input tokens
- Gemini 3.8 Flash$0.75 against $2
- Longer context window
- GPT-5.6 Terra1.05M tokens against 1.05M tokens
- Newer release
- Gemini 3.8 FlashSep 2026 against Jul 2026
Data verified November 3, 2026 · Dataset 2026-11-03
Side by side
Gemini 3.8 Flash and GPT-5.6 Terra, line by line
Prices in effect today, compared at the same tier wherever both list one. The better value in each row is highlighted.
| Fact | Gemini 3.8 Flash | GPT-5.6 Terra |
|---|---|---|
| Price | ||
| Price per 1M input tokens | $0.75 (better) | $2 |
| Price per 1M output tokens | $3.75 (better) | $12 |
| Independent benchmarks | ||
| Arena Text | 1496 Elo (#6 of 51) (better) | 1467 Elo (#26 of 51) |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2) | 68.4% (#26 of 42) | 86% (#10 of 42) (better) |
| GPQA Diamond | 95.4% (#4 of 41) (better) | 93.3% (#14 of 41) |
| SimpleQA Verified | 69.7% (#8 of 38) (better) | 43.2% (#26 of 38) |
| Arena WebDev | 1583 Elo (#25 of 45) | Not measured |
| Specs | ||
| Provider | OpenAI | |
| Release date | September 2, 2026 | July 9, 2026 |
| Access | API only | API only |
| Context window | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,050,000 tokens |
| Max output | 65,536 tokens | 128,000 tokens |
| Input | text, image, audio, video | text, image |
| Output | text | text |
Charts
Against every current text model
Where Gemini 3.8 Flash and GPT-5.6 Terra land among the current models of their task, on every independent benchmark, on price and on context.
Where each stands
On Arena Text, Gemini 3.8 Flash ranks #6 and GPT-5.6 Terra #26 of 51 current models. Each bar is the share of current models it beats: on score, price and context.
Independent benchmarks
Arena Text
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#6of 51
1,496 Elo · ahead of 90%
GPT-5.6 Terra:#26of 51
1,467 Elo · ahead of 50%
Arena WebDev
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#25of 45
1,583 Elo · ahead of 45%
GPT-5.6 Terra: Not scored
FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#26of 42
68.4% · ahead of 39%
GPT-5.6 Terra:#10of 42
86% · ahead of 76%
GPQA Diamond
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#4of 41
95.4% · ahead of 90%
GPT-5.6 Terra:#14of 41
93.3% · ahead of 65%
SimpleQA Verified
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#8of 38
69.7% · ahead of 78%
GPT-5.6 Terra:#26of 38
43.2% · ahead of 32%
Price and context
Price per 1M input tokens
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#20of 52
$0.75 · cheaper than 63%
GPT-5.6 Terra:#29of 52
$2 · cheaper than 24%
Price per 1M output tokens
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#23of 52
$3.75 · cheaper than 57%
GPT-5.6 Terra:#40of 52
$12 · cheaper than 24%
Context window
Gemini 3.8 Flash:#11of 64
1.05M tokens · longer than 67%
GPT-5.6 Terra:#1of 64
1.05M tokens · longer than 86%
Quality against price
Gemini 3.8 Flash scores 1,496 at $1.50; GPT-5.6 Terra scores 1,467 at $4.50 (blended price per 1M tokens). The line joins the current models no other beats on both price and Arena Text score; hover any point to name it.
Quality against price: the data
| Model | Provider | Blended price per 1M tokens | Arena Text (Elo) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 4 Argon | $4 | 1,520 | |
| Claude Opus 5.5 | Anthropic | $8 | 1,509 |
| Muse Wonder | Meta | $8 | 1,507 |
| Claude Fable 5 | Anthropic | $20 | 1,504 |
| Claude Fable 5.1 | Anthropic | $20 | 1,504 |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | $1.50 | 1,496 | |
| Muse Spark 1.3 | Meta | $2 | 1,495 |
| Claude Opus 5 | Anthropic | $10 | 1,492 |
| Kimi K3 | Moonshot Kimi | $6 | 1,488 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | OpenAI | $8 | 1,485 |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | $3 | 1,483 | |
| GPT-5.5 | OpenAI | $11 | 1,482 |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | Anthropic | $10 | 1,482 |
| Qwen3.8-Max | Alibaba Qwen | $3 | 1,482 |
| GPT-6.1 Sol | OpenAI | $4 | 1,481 |
| GLM-5.3 | Z.ai | $2.15 | 1,481 |
| MiMo-V2.6-Pro | Xiaomi MiMo | $0.54 | 1,480 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Anthropic | $4 | 1,477 |
| GLM-5.3-Flash | Z.ai | $0.24 | 1,477 |
| GPT-6 Astra | OpenAI | $20 | 1,476 |
| DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash | DeepSeek | $0.52 | 1,476 |
| GPT-5.4 | OpenAI | $5.63 | 1,475 |
| Gemini 3 Flash Preview | $1.13 | 1,473 | |
| Grok 4.20 | xAI | $1.56 | 1,472 |
| GPT-5.6 Terra | OpenAI | $4.50 | 1,467 |
| Grok 4.5 | xAI | $3 | 1,465 |
| DeepSeek-V4-Pro | DeepSeek | $1.98 | 1,465 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Anthropic | $4 | 1,462 |
| GPT-6 Sol | OpenAI | $4 | 1,458 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | $0.85 | 1,456 | |
| Grok 4.6 | xAI | $3 | 1,455 |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | OpenAI | $0.45 | 1,453 |
| MiMo-V2.6-Flash | Xiaomi MiMo | $0.18 | 1,448 |
| Step 5 Preview | StepFun | $1.43 | 1,448 |
| Grok 4.3 | xAI | $1.56 | 1,442 |
| GPT-6 Luna | OpenAI | $0.20 | 1,441 |
| Grok 4.7 | xAI | $3 | 1,441 |
| Mistral Large 4 | Mistral AI | $1.05 | 1,432 |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 | Anthropic | $0.20 | 1,425 |
| GPT-4.1 | OpenAI | $3.50 | 1,415 |
| Solar Pro 4 | Upstage | $0.52 | 1,388 |
| GPT-4.1 mini | OpenAI | $0.70 | 1,383 |
| GPT-4.1 nano | OpenAI | $0.18 | 1,322 |
Cost
What each costs
Example workloads at each provider's listed rates, then every other rate either one lists. The cheaper figure in each row is highlighted.
The same work, priced
For 10M input and 2M output tokens, GPT-5.6 Terra costs 2.9 times as much as Gemini 3.8 Flash, at each provider's listed rates.
10M input and 2M output tokens
GPT-5.6 Terra costs 2.9× as much
- Gemini 3.8 Flash
- $15
- GPT-5.6 Terra
- $44
The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached
GPT-5.6 Terra costs 3.1× as much
- Gemini 3.8 Flash
- $8.93
- GPT-5.6 Terra
- $27.80
| Workload or rate | Gemini 3.8 Flash | GPT-5.6 Terra |
|---|---|---|
| Example workloads | ||
| 10M input and 2M output tokens | $15 (better) | $44 |
| The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached | $8.93 (better) | $27.80 |
| The same, through the batch API | $7.50 | Not listed |
| Other listed rates | ||
| 1M input tokens, cached | $0.075 (better) | $0.20 |
| 1M input tokens, batch | $0.375 | Not listed |
| 1M output tokens, batch | $1.875 | Not listed |
| 1M input tokens, priority | $1.35 | Not listed |
| 1M output tokens, priority | $6.75 | Not listed |
Your own bill will differ. These figures use list prices and example workloads. The AI Model Cost Audit reviews your real usage, shortlists models that score as well for each task for less, and estimates the savings.
Launch price $100, regular price $150
Verdict
When to choose each
Gemini 3.8 Flash
Where it leads
- Lower input and output prices, $0.75 and $3.75 vs $2 and $12 per 1M tokens
- Higher Arena Text score, 1496 Elo vs 1467 Elo
- Higher GPQA Diamond score, 95.4% vs 93.3%
- Higher SimpleQA Verified score, 69.7% vs 43.2%
- Accepts audio and video input
- Cheaper cached input, $0.075 vs $0.20 per 1M tokens
- Batch pricing, $0.375 input and $1.875 output per 1M tokens
Best for
- High-volume agentic and coding workloads where per-token cost dominates the decision
- Multimodal pipelines that need audio, video and PDF input in one model
Watch out for
- The listed price is promotional and ends 31 December 2026; on 1 January 2027 input and output both double, to $1.50 and $7.50, and cached input goes from $0.075 to $0.15
- Output pricing is billed inclusive of thinking tokens, so reasoning-heavy prompts cost more than the output length suggests
- Google’s published comparisons are against its own previous Flash release and were not independently reproduced here
GPT-5.6 Terra
Where it leads
- Higher FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2) score, 86% vs 68.4%
- Longer responses, up to 128,000 vs 65,536 output tokens
Best for
- Balanced long-context API evaluations
- Reasoning-heavy work that does not depend on broad factual recall
Watch out for
- Not in the pinned LiveBench snapshot; its independent scores here come from Epoch AI's own GPQA Diamond, FrontierMath and SimpleQA Verified runs
From benchmark to production
Building on Gemini 3.8 Flash or GPT-5.6 Terra?
Public scores rarely hold on your own data. We test both models on your real tasks, then build the agent or pipeline around the one that wins.
AI Model Cost AuditLaunch price $100, regular price $150What the audit includes
FAQ
Gemini 3.8 Flash vs GPT-5.6 Terra FAQ
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.8 Flash or GPT-5.6 Terra?
Gemini 3.8 Flash is 63% cheaper per 1M input tokens than GPT-5.6 Terra, $0.75 vs $2. For 10M input and 2M output tokens, Gemini 3.8 Flash costs $15 and GPT-5.6 Terra $44 at standard rates.
Which is cheaper with prompt caching, Gemini 3.8 Flash or GPT-5.6 Terra?
Gemini 3.8 Flash charges $0.075 per 1M cached input tokens, 90% below its standard input rate, and GPT-5.6 Terra $0.20, 90% below. With 9M of 10M input tokens cached and 2M output tokens, Gemini 3.8 Flash costs $8.93 and GPT-5.6 Terra $27.80.
Which scores higher on independent benchmarks, Gemini 3.8 Flash or GPT-5.6 Terra?
Gemini 3.8 Flash leads on Arena Text, 1496 Elo to 1467 Elo; GPT-5.6 Terra leads on FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2), 86% to 68.4%; Gemini 3.8 Flash leads on GPQA Diamond, 95.4% to 93.3%. Scores are independent evaluations, not either vendor's launch figures.
Which has the larger context window, Gemini 3.8 Flash or GPT-5.6 Terra?
Both accept about 1.05M tokens of context (1,050,000 and 1,048,576). GPT-5.6 Terra returns up to 128,000 tokens per response, Gemini 3.8 Flash 65,536.
How do Gemini 3.8 Flash and GPT-5.6 Terra differ in features?
Gemini 3.8 Flash takes text, image, audio and video input; GPT-5.6 Terra takes text and image.
Further reading
More on Gemini 3.8 Flash and GPT-5.6 Terra
Articles on Gemini 3.8 Flash and GPT-5.6 Terra
- Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS: Price, Rankings and the Fine PrintSeptember 25, 2026
- GPT-5.6 on Azure Databricks: Production Guide for AI TeamsJuly 11, 2026
- GPT-5.6 In Microsoft 365 Copilot: What Production Teams Should KnowJuly 10, 2026
- Unverified GPT-5.6 soft launch reports and what they mean for AI-assisted software engineering: what is confirmed?June 21, 2026
Related comparisons
- Claude Haiku 5.5 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash
- Gemini 4 Argon vs GPT-5.6 Terra
- Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Mistral Large 4
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs GPT-5.6 Terra
- Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Gemini 4 Argon
- GPT-5.6 Terra vs GPT-6 Luna
- Gemini 3.8 Flash vs GPT-6.1 Sol
- DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs GPT-5.6 Terra
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash
- GPT-5.6 Terra vs Kimi K3
- Claude Opus 5.5 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.6 Terra
Production evaluation
Choosing between Gemini 3.8 Flash and GPT-5.6 Terra?
Public benchmarks narrow the shortlist. We run both on your own tasks, data and cost limits, then build the routing and review controls to run the winner in production.
- A head-to-head evaluation on your real workload
- Routing between models by cost and difficulty