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Van Data Team

text model comparison

Gemini 4 Carbon vs GPT-6 Sol

Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Sol are both current text models, from Google and OpenAI. Both cost $2 per 1M input tokens. On Arena Text, Gemini 4 Carbon scores 1526 Elo and GPT-6 Sol 1457 Elo (Arena, measured November 9, 2026). Both accept about 1.05M tokens of context (1,048,576 and 1,050,000).

Higher Arena Text
Gemini 4 Carbon1526 Elo against 1457 Elo
Longer context window
GPT-6 Sol1.05M tokens against 1.05M tokens
Newer release
Gemini 4 CarbonOct 2026 against Sep 2026

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

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Side by side

Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Sol, 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 Sol
Price
Price per 1M input tokens$2$2
Price per 1M output tokens$10$10
Independent benchmarks
Arena Text1526 Elo (#1 of 48) (better)1457 Elo (#26 of 48)
Arena WebDev1768 Elo (#4 of 44) (better)1673 Elo (#10 of 44)
GPQA Diamond96.5% (#1 of 40) (better)94.3% (#8 of 40)
FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)90.5% (#6 of 39) (better)89.8% (#7 of 39)
SimpleQA Verified77.7% (#2 of 36) (better)60.7% (#14 of 36)
Specs
ProviderGoogleOpenAI
Release dateOctober 28, 2026September 22, 2026
AccessAPI onlyAPI only
Context window1,048,576 tokens1,050,000 tokens
Max output65,536 tokens128,000 tokens
Inputtext, image, audio, videotext, image
Outputtexttext

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

Open both in the interactive comparison

Charts

Against every current text model

Where Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Sol 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 Sol #26 of 48 current models. Each bar is the share of current models it beats: on score, price and context.

Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Sol among the current text models, one row per benchmark, price and context window.

Independent benchmarks

Arena Text

Gemini 4 Carbon:#1of 48

1,526 Elo · ahead of 100%

GPT-6 Sol:#26of 48

1,457 Elo · ahead of 47%

Arena WebDev

Gemini 4 Carbon:#4of 44

1,768 Elo · ahead of 93%

GPT-6 Sol:#10of 44

1,673 Elo · ahead of 79%

GPQA Diamond

Gemini 4 Carbon:#1of 40

96.5% · ahead of 100%

GPT-6 Sol:#8of 40

94.3% · ahead of 79%

FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)

Gemini 4 Carbon:#6of 39

90.5% · ahead of 87%

GPT-6 Sol:#7of 39

89.8% · ahead of 84%

SimpleQA Verified

Gemini 4 Carbon:#2of 36

77.7% · ahead of 97%

GPT-6 Sol:#14of 36

60.7% · ahead of 63%

Price and context

Price per 1M input tokens

Gemini 4 Carbon:#33of 57

$2 · cheaper than 23%

GPT-6 Sol:#33of 57

$2 · cheaper than 23%

Price per 1M output tokens

Gemini 4 Carbon:#38of 57

$10 · cheaper than 25%

GPT-6 Sol:#38of 57

$10 · cheaper than 25%

Context window

Gemini 4 Carbon:#12of 67

1.05M tokens · longer than 64%

GPT-6 Sol:#1of 67

1.05M tokens · longer than 85%

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

Quality against price

Arena Text · measured November 9, 2026

Gemini 4 Carbon scores 1,526 at $4; GPT-6 Sol scores 1,457 at $4 (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 40 text models, Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Sol marked.1,2501,3001,3501,4001,4501,5001,550$0.30$1$3$10MOST ATTRACTIVE QUADRANTMedian price $2.08Median 1,472Blended price per 1M tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scaleArena Text (Elo)Gemini 4 CarbonGPT-6 Sol
Quality against price: the data
Arena Text score against price for 40 text models, Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Sol marked.
ModelProviderBlended price per 1M tokensArena Text (Elo)
Gemini 4 CarbonGoogle$41,526
Gemini 4 ArgonGoogle$41,522
Muse WonderMeta$81,511
Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic$81,506
Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogle$1.501,497
Muse Spark 1.3Meta$21,496
Kimi K3Moonshot Kimi$61,487
GPT-5.6 SolOpenAI$81,485
Qwen3.8-MaxAlibaba Qwen$31,484
Gemini 3.6 FlashGoogle$31,483
GLM-5.3Z.ai$2.151,483
GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI$41,482
GPT-5.5OpenAI$111,481
MiMo-V2.6-ProXiaomi MiMo$0.541,480
GPT-5.4OpenAI$5.631,475
DeepSeek-V4.1-FlashDeepSeek$0.521,475
GPT-6 AstraOpenAI$201,474
GLM-5.3-FlashZ.ai$0.241,474
Gemini 3 Flash PreviewGoogle$1.131,473
Grok 4.20xAI$1.561,472
Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic$41,472
GPT-5.6 TerraOpenAI$4.501,468
Grok 4.5xAI$31,466
DeepSeek-V4-ProDeepSeek$1.981,464
GPT-6 SolOpenAI$41,457
Grok 4.6xAI$31,456
Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteGoogle$0.851,455
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
Grok 4.7xAI$31,442
GPT-6 LunaOpenAI$0.201,441
Mistral Large 4Mistral AI$1.051,423
Claude Haiku 5.5Anthropic$0.201,422
GPT-4.1OpenAI$3.501,415
Inkling 2 SmallThinking Machines Lab$0.471,412
Solar Pro 4Upstage$0.521,387
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

At each provider's listed rates.

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

  • 10M input and 2M output tokens

    The same price

    Gemini 4 Carbon
    $40
    GPT-6 Sol
    $40

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

    GPT-6 Sol costs 1.0× as much

    Gemini 4 Carbon
    $22.90
    GPT-6 Sol
    $23.80
Workload or rateGemini 4 CarbonGPT-6 Sol
Example workloads
10M input and 2M output tokens$40$40
The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached$22.90 (better)$23.80
The same, through the batch API$20Not listed
Other listed rates
1M input tokens, cached$0.10 (better)$0.20
1M input tokens, batch$1Not listed
1M output tokens, batch$5Not listed
1M input tokens, prompts over 272K tokensNot listed$4
1M output tokens, prompts over 272K tokensNot listed$15

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

  • Higher Arena Text score, 1526 Elo vs 1457 Elo
  • Higher Arena WebDev score, 1768 Elo vs 1673 Elo
  • Higher GPQA Diamond score, 96.5% vs 94.3%
  • Higher FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2) score, 90.5% vs 89.8%
  • Higher SimpleQA Verified score, 77.7% vs 60.7%
  • Accepts audio and video input
  • Cheaper cached input, $0.10 vs $0.20 per 1M tokens
  • Batch pricing, $1 input and $5 output per 1M tokens

Best for

  • Finding, validating and patching vulnerabilities
  • Long-horizon engineering and research over very long inputs

Watch out for

  • Generally available in the Gemini API since November 10, 2026, on the paid tier only (there is no free tier), after two weeks open only to cyber defenders in its Fairwind Program
  • The $2 and $10 rates are introductory and end on November 30, 2026: from December 1, input, output and cached input double, to $4, $20 and $0.20 per 1M tokens (Batch from $1 and $5 to $2 and $10)
  • 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%)
  • A request returns at most 65,536 output tokens by default; longer outputs, up to 1,048,576 tokens, need Google long-decode mode
Full Gemini 4 Carbon profile

GPT-6 Sol

Where it leads

  • Longer responses, up to 128,000 vs 65,536 output tokens

Best for

  • General production work that does not need Astra's capability or price
  • Workloads kept under the 272,000-token threshold

Watch out for

  • Prompts over 272,000 input tokens are rebilled for the whole request at $4 input and $15 output, so crossing the line roughly doubles input cost
  • GPT-6.1 Sol lists the same base rates with half the cached-input price, so there is little reason to pick this one for a cache-heavy workload
Full GPT-6 Sol profile

From benchmark to production

Building on Gemini 4 Carbon or GPT-6 Sol?

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 Sol FAQ

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

Both cost $2 per 1M input tokens. For 10M input and 2M output tokens, Gemini 4 Carbon costs $40 and GPT-6 Sol $40 at standard rates.

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

Gemini 4 Carbon charges $0.10 per 1M cached input tokens, 95% below its standard input rate, and GPT-6 Sol $0.20, 90% below. With 9M of 10M input tokens cached and 2M output tokens, Gemini 4 Carbon costs $22.90 and GPT-6 Sol $23.80.

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

Gemini 4 Carbon leads on Arena Text, 1526 Elo to 1457 Elo; Gemini 4 Carbon leads on Arena WebDev, 1768 Elo to 1673 Elo; Gemini 4 Carbon leads on GPQA Diamond, 96.5% to 94.3%. Scores are independent evaluations, not either vendor's launch figures.

Which has the larger context window, Gemini 4 Carbon or GPT-6 Sol?

Both accept about 1.05M tokens of context (1,048,576 and 1,050,000). GPT-6 Sol returns up to 128,000 tokens per response, Gemini 4 Carbon 65,536.

How do Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Sol differ in features?

Gemini 4 Carbon takes text, image, audio and video input; GPT-6 Sol takes text and image.

Further reading

More on Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Sol

Articles on Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Sol

Related comparisons

Production evaluation

Choosing between Gemini 4 Carbon and GPT-6 Sol?

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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