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Van Data Team

text model comparison

Gemini 4 Carbon vs GPT-6 Astra

Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Astra are both current text models, from Google and OpenAI. Gemini 4 Carbon is 80% cheaper per 1M input tokens than GPT-6 Astra, $2 vs $10. On Arena Text, Gemini 4 Carbon scores 1528 Elo and GPT-6 Astra 1476 Elo (Arena, measured October 28, 2026).

Higher Arena Text
Gemini 4 Carbon1528 Elo against 1476 Elo
Lower price per 1M input tokens
Gemini 4 Carbon$2 against $10
Newer release
Gemini 4 CarbonOct 2026 against Sep 2026

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

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Side by side

Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Astra, 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-6 Astra
Price
Price per 1M input tokens$2 (better)$10
Price per 1M output tokens$10 (better)$50
Independent benchmarks
Arena Text1528 Elo (#1 of 52) (better)1476 Elo (#22 of 52)
Arena WebDev1768 Elo (#4 of 46)1773 Elo (#2 of 46) (better)
GPQA DiamondNot measured95.8% (#2 of 41)
FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)Not measured93.7% (#1 of 41)
SimpleQA VerifiedNot measured75.6% (#2 of 38)
Specs
ProviderGoogleOpenAI
Release dateOctober 28, 2026September 3, 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

Provider results

What the labs report

Results tables a lab published with one of its models, where it lists both Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Astra. These are the lab's own figures, not independent measurements, and each table is read on its own: labs run benchmarks with different harnesses and budgets.

Google, Gemini 4 Carbon launch table, October 28, 2026Google · 2026-11-05

BenchmarkGemini 4 CarbonGPT-6 Astra
SEC-bench Pro88.2% (better)85.4%
ExploitGym54.8% (better)42.4%
CWE-bench71.0% (better)68.0%
SWE-sweep9.6% (better)9.5%
FrontierSWE 261.2%65.5% (better)
Agents' Last Exam v1.1score77.4% (better)73.1%
OSWorld-2.1offline subset81.5% (better)80.9%
AutomationBenchZapier53.9% (better)41.4%
Vending-Bench 2bank balance$16,484 (better)$15,515
Chartography72.5% (better)71.0%
Blueprint-Bench 2similarity score58.6% (better)49.7%
GraphWalks256K to 1M tokens, BFS F196.2% (better)71.8%
RiemannBench80.0% (better)72.0%

Google's table from the Gemini 4 Carbon announcement, evaluated without guardrails; Google publishes its methodology at deepmind.google/models/evals-methodology/gemini-4-carbon. The cybersecurity rows, Google's headline, come first. Left out here: the Artificial Analysis and Vals indexes and the two rows Artificial Analysis ran (Terminal-Bench 4.0 and Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1).

Charts

Against every current text model

Where Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Astra 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-6 Astra #22 of 52 current models. Each bar is the share of current models it beats: on score, price and context.

Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Astra 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-6 Astra:#22of 52

1,476 Elo · ahead of 57%

Arena WebDev

Gemini 4 Carbon:#4of 46

1,768 Elo · ahead of 93%

GPT-6 Astra:#2of 46

1,773 Elo · ahead of 98%

GPQA Diamond

Gemini 4 Carbon: Not scored

GPT-6 Astra:#2of 41

95.8% · ahead of 98%

FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)

Gemini 4 Carbon: Not scored

GPT-6 Astra:#1of 41

93.7% · ahead of 98%

SimpleQA Verified

Gemini 4 Carbon: Not scored

GPT-6 Astra:#2of 38

75.6% · ahead of 97%

Price and context

Price per 1M input tokens

Gemini 4 Carbon:#30of 55

$2 · cheaper than 24%

GPT-6 Astra:#51of 55

$10 · cheaper than 2%

Price per 1M output tokens

Gemini 4 Carbon:#35of 55

$10 · cheaper than 26%

GPT-6 Astra:#51of 55

$50 · cheaper than 2%

Context window

Gemini 4 Carbon: Not listed

GPT-6 Astra:#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-6 Astra scores 1,476 at $20 (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-6 Astra 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-6 Astra
Quality against price: the data
Arena Text score against price for 44 text models, Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Astra 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-6 Astra costs 5.0 times as much as Gemini 4 Carbon, at each provider's listed rates.

What Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Astra cost for the same work, at the rates each provider lists.

  • 10M input and 2M output tokens

    GPT-6 Astra costs 5.0× as much

    Gemini 4 Carbon
    $40
    GPT-6 Astra
    $200

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

    GPT-6 Astra costs 5.2× as much

    Gemini 4 Carbon
    $22.90
    GPT-6 Astra
    $119
Workload or rateGemini 4 CarbonGPT-6 Astra
Example workloads
10M input and 2M output tokens$40 (better)$200
The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached$22.90 (better)$119
Other listed rates
1M input tokens, cached$0.10 (better)$1

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 input and output prices, $2 and $10 vs $10 and $50 per 1M tokens
  • Higher Arena Text score, 1528 Elo vs 1476 Elo
  • Cheaper cached input, $0.10 vs $1 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-6 Astra

Where it leads

  • Higher Arena WebDev score, 1773 Elo vs 1768 Elo

Best for

  • Frontier reasoning and agentic evaluations where deep-context retrieval accuracy is the binding constraint
  • Workloads that can be kept under the long-context threshold, where the effective rate stays at $10 / $50

Watch out for

  • Long-context billing is a cliff, not a taper: a request over the long-context threshold is rebilled in full at $20 per million input and $75 per million output, so a prompt that crosses it costs roughly double
  • GPT-6 Astra is the first publicly released model OpenAI classifies as crossing the Critical cybersecurity threshold under its own Preparedness Framework, which carries additional deployment safeguards
  • Vendor-reported benchmark figures come from OpenAI’s own launch material and its own harness; they are not independently reproduced here
Full GPT-6 Astra profile

From benchmark to production

Building on Gemini 4 Carbon or GPT-6 Astra?

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-6 Astra FAQ

Which is cheaper, Gemini 4 Carbon or GPT-6 Astra?

Gemini 4 Carbon is 80% cheaper per 1M input tokens than GPT-6 Astra, $2 vs $10. For 10M input and 2M output tokens, Gemini 4 Carbon costs $40 and GPT-6 Astra $200 at standard rates.

Which is cheaper with prompt caching, Gemini 4 Carbon or GPT-6 Astra?

Gemini 4 Carbon charges $0.10 per 1M cached input tokens, 95% below its standard input rate, and GPT-6 Astra $1, 90% below. With 9M of 10M input tokens cached and 2M output tokens, Gemini 4 Carbon costs $22.90 and GPT-6 Astra $119.

Which scores higher on independent benchmarks, Gemini 4 Carbon or GPT-6 Astra?

Gemini 4 Carbon leads on Arena Text, 1528 Elo to 1476 Elo; GPT-6 Astra leads on Arena WebDev, 1773 Elo to 1768 Elo. Scores are independent evaluations, not either vendor's launch figures.

How do Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Astra compare in Google's own results?

In Gemini 4 Carbon launch table (October 28, 2026), Gemini 4 Carbon leads on SEC-bench Pro, 88.2% to 85.4%; Gemini 4 Carbon leads on ExploitGym, 54.8% to 42.4%; Gemini 4 Carbon leads on CWE-bench, 71.0% to 68.0%. These are Google's figures, not independent measurements.

Further reading

More on Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Astra

Articles on Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Astra

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