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text model comparison

Gemini 4 Carbon vs GPT-5.6 Terra

Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-5.6 Terra are both current text models, from Google and OpenAI. Both cost $2 per 1M input tokens. On Arena Text, Gemini 4 Carbon scores 1528 Elo and GPT-5.6 Terra 1467 Elo (Arena, measured October 28, 2026).

Higher Arena Text
Gemini 4 Carbon1528 Elo against 1467 Elo
Newer release
Gemini 4 CarbonOct 2026 against Jul 2026

Data verified November 5, 2026 · Dataset 2026-11-05

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Side by side

Gemini 4 Carbon 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.

FactGemini 4 CarbonGPT-5.6 Terra
Price
Price per 1M input tokens$2$2
Price per 1M output tokens$10 (better)$12
Independent benchmarks
Arena Text1528 Elo (#1 of 52) (better)1467 Elo (#27 of 52)
Arena WebDev1768 Elo (#4 of 46)Not measured
GPQA DiamondNot measured93.3% (#14 of 41)
FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)Not measured86% (#10 of 41)
SimpleQA VerifiedNot measured43.2% (#26 of 38)
Specs
ProviderGoogleOpenAI
Release dateOctober 28, 2026July 9, 2026
Accesslimited accessAPI only
Context windowNot reported1,050,000 tokens
Max outputNot reported128,000 tokens
Inputtext, imagetext, image
Outputtexttext

Scores:Arena · 2026-11-03Epoch AI · 2026-11-03

Open both in the interactive comparison

Charts

Against every current text model

Where Gemini 4 Carbon 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 4 Carbon ranks #1 and GPT-5.6 Terra #27 of 52 current models. Each bar is the share of current models it beats: on score, price and context.

Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-5.6 Terra among the current text models, one row per benchmark, price and context window.

Independent benchmarks

Arena Text

Gemini 4 Carbon:#1of 52

1,528 Elo · ahead of 100%

GPT-5.6 Terra:#27of 52

1,467 Elo · ahead of 49%

Arena WebDev

Gemini 4 Carbon:#4of 46

1,768 Elo · ahead of 93%

GPT-5.6 Terra: Not scored

GPQA Diamond

Gemini 4 Carbon: Not scored

GPT-5.6 Terra:#14of 41

93.3% · ahead of 65%

FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)

Gemini 4 Carbon: Not scored

GPT-5.6 Terra:#10of 41

86% · ahead of 75%

SimpleQA Verified

Gemini 4 Carbon: Not scored

GPT-5.6 Terra:#26of 38

43.2% · ahead of 32%

Price and context

Price per 1M input tokens

Gemini 4 Carbon:#30of 55

$2 · cheaper than 24%

GPT-5.6 Terra:#30of 55

$2 · cheaper than 24%

Price per 1M output tokens

Gemini 4 Carbon:#35of 55

$10 · cheaper than 26%

GPT-5.6 Terra:#42of 55

$12 · cheaper than 24%

Context window

Gemini 4 Carbon: Not listed

GPT-5.6 Terra:#1of 64

1.05M tokens · longer than 86%

Scores fromArena · 2026-11-03Epoch AI · 2026-11-03

Quality against price

Arena Text · measured October 28, 2026

Gemini 4 Carbon scores 1,528 at $4; 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 priceArena Text score against price for 44 text models, Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-5.6 Terra marked.1,2501,3001,3501,4001,4501,5001,550$0.30$1$3$10MOST ATTRACTIVE QUADRANTMedian price $3Median 1,476Blended price per 1M tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scaleArena Text (Elo)Gemini 4 CarbonGPT-5.6 Terra
Quality against price: the data
Arena Text score against price for 44 text models, Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-5.6 Terra marked.
ModelProviderBlended price per 1M tokensArena Text (Elo)
Gemini 4 CarbonGoogle$41,528
Gemini 4 ArgonGoogle$41,520
Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic$81,509
Muse WonderMeta$81,507
Claude Fable 5Anthropic$201,504
Claude Fable 5.1Anthropic$201,504
Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogle$1.501,496
Muse Spark 1.3Meta$21,495
Claude Opus 5Anthropic$101,492
Kimi K3Moonshot Kimi$61,488
GPT-5.6 SolOpenAI$81,485
Gemini 3.6 FlashGoogle$31,483
GPT-5.5OpenAI$111,482
Claude Opus 4.8Anthropic$101,482
Qwen3.8-MaxAlibaba Qwen$31,482
GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI$41,481
GLM-5.3Z.ai$2.151,481
MiMo-V2.6-ProXiaomi MiMo$0.541,480
Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic$41,477
GLM-5.3-FlashZ.ai$0.241,477
GPT-6 AstraOpenAI$201,476
DeepSeek-V4.1-FlashDeepSeek$0.521,476
GPT-5.4OpenAI$5.631,475
Gemini 3 Flash PreviewGoogle$1.131,473
Grok 4.20xAI$1.561,472
GPT-5.6 TerraOpenAI$4.501,467
Grok 4.5xAI$31,465
DeepSeek-V4-ProDeepSeek$1.981,465
Claude Sonnet 5Anthropic$41,462
GPT-6 SolOpenAI$41,458
Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteGoogle$0.851,456
Grok 4.6xAI$31,455
GPT-5.6 LunaOpenAI$0.451,453
MiMo-V2.6-FlashXiaomi MiMo$0.181,448
Step 5 PreviewStepFun$1.431,448
Grok 4.3xAI$1.561,442
GPT-6 LunaOpenAI$0.201,441
Grok 4.7xAI$31,441
Mistral Large 4Mistral AI$1.051,432
Claude Haiku 5.5Anthropic$0.201,425
GPT-4.1OpenAI$3.501,415
Solar Pro 4Upstage$0.521,388
GPT-4.1 miniOpenAI$0.701,383
GPT-4.1 nanoOpenAI$0.181,322

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 1.1 times as much as Gemini 4 Carbon, at each provider's listed rates.

What Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-5.6 Terra cost for the same work, at the rates each provider lists.

  • 10M input and 2M output tokens

    GPT-5.6 Terra costs 1.1× as much

    Gemini 4 Carbon
    $40
    GPT-5.6 Terra
    $44

  • The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached

    GPT-5.6 Terra costs 1.2× as much

    Gemini 4 Carbon
    $22.90
    GPT-5.6 Terra
    $27.80
Workload or rateGemini 4 CarbonGPT-5.6 Terra
Example workloads
10M input and 2M output tokens$40 (better)$44
The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached$22.90 (better)$27.80
Other listed rates
1M input tokens, cached$0.10 (better)$0.20

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

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Verdict

When to choose each

Gemini 4 Carbon

Where it leads

  • Lower price per 1M output tokens, $10 vs $12
  • Higher Arena Text score, 1528 Elo vs 1467 Elo
  • Cheaper cached input, $0.10 vs $0.20 per 1M tokens

Best for

  • Finding, validating and patching vulnerabilities, for teams in Google's Fairwind Program
  • Long-horizon engineering over very long inputs, once access opens

Watch out for

  • Limited access: Google gives it first to a small group of cyber defenders, then to more trusted partners through its Fairwind Program, which governments, healthcare providers and telecoms apply to; there is no public API or app access yet
  • The $2 and $10 rates are introductory, with cached input 95% off; after an introductory period Google has not dated, $4 input and $20 output per 1M tokens apply
  • In Google's own table it trails GPT-6 Astra on FrontierSWE 2 (61.2% against 65.5%) and Claude Opus 5.5 on OSWorld-2.1 (81.5% against 87.2%)
  • Google publishes no context window or output limit for Carbon yet
Full Gemini 4 Carbon profile

GPT-5.6 Terra

Where it leads

No measured lead over Gemini 4 Carbon in this data.

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
Full GPT-5.6 Terra profile

From benchmark to production

Building on Gemini 4 Carbon 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

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FAQ

Gemini 4 Carbon vs GPT-5.6 Terra FAQ

Which is cheaper, Gemini 4 Carbon or GPT-5.6 Terra?

Both cost $2 per 1M input tokens. For 10M input and 2M output tokens, Gemini 4 Carbon costs $40 and GPT-5.6 Terra $44 at standard rates.

Which is cheaper with prompt caching, Gemini 4 Carbon or GPT-5.6 Terra?

Gemini 4 Carbon charges $0.10 per 1M cached input tokens, 95% 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 4 Carbon costs $22.90 and GPT-5.6 Terra $27.80.

Which scores higher on independent benchmarks, Gemini 4 Carbon or GPT-5.6 Terra?

Gemini 4 Carbon leads on Arena Text, 1528 Elo to 1467 Elo. Scores are independent evaluations, not either vendor's launch figures.

Further reading

More on Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-5.6 Terra

Articles on Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-5.6 Terra

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Production evaluation

Choosing between Gemini 4 Carbon 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
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