text model comparison
GPT-5.6 Cyber vs GPT-6 Astra
GPT-5.6 Cyber and GPT-6 Astra are both current text models, from OpenAI. GPT-6 Astra is 20% cheaper per 1M input tokens than GPT-5.6 Cyber, $10 vs $12.50. In OpenAI's GPT-6 Cyber launch post, GPT-5.6 Cyber scores 32.1% on ExploitGym (strict supplied-vulnerability pass@1) and GPT-6 Astra 42.4%. GPT-6 Astra has the larger context window, 1,050,000 vs 400,000 tokens.
- Lower price per 1M input tokens
- GPT-6 Astra$10 against $12.50
- Longer context window
- GPT-6 Astra1.05M tokens against 400K tokens
- Newer release
- GPT-6 AstraSep 2026 against Aug 2026
Data verified November 6, 2026 · Dataset 2026-11-06
Side by side
GPT-5.6 Cyber 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.
| Fact | GPT-5.6 Cyber | GPT-6 Astra |
|---|---|---|
| Price | ||
| Price per 1M input tokens | $12.50 | $10 (better) |
| Price per 1M output tokens | $75 | $50 (better) |
| Independent benchmarks | ||
| Arena Text | Not measured | 1476 Elo (#22 of 52) |
| Arena WebDev | Not measured | 1773 Elo (#2 of 46) |
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 95.8% (#2 of 41) |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2) | Not measured | 93.7% (#1 of 41) |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 75.6% (#2 of 38) |
| Specs | ||
| Provider | OpenAI | OpenAI |
| Release date | August 10, 2026 | September 3, 2026 |
| Access | limited access | API only |
| Context window | 400,000 tokens | 1,050,000 tokens |
| Max output | 128,000 tokens | 128,000 tokens |
| Input | text, image | text, image |
| Output | text | text |
No independent benchmark has scored both models yet. Each rank counts the current models scored on that benchmark.
Provider results
What the labs report
Results tables a lab published with one of its models, where it lists both GPT-5.6 Cyber 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.
OpenAI, GPT-6 Cyber launch post, November 5, 2026OpenAI · 2026-11-06
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Cyber | GPT-6 Astra |
|---|---|---|
| ExploitGymstrict supplied-vulnerability pass@1 | 32.1% | 42.4% (better) |
OpenAI's chart from the GPT-6 Cyber announcement. GPT-6 Astra and GPT-5.6 Sol ran with Daybreak Blue access; with its standard safeguards GPT-6 Astra refuses these tasks and scores 0%. Left out here: RemoteExploitBench and the web pentesting evaluation, which OpenAI built itself, the honeypot evaluation, where lower is better, and SRE-Bench, which is in the system card table.
Charts
Against every current text model
Where GPT-5.6 Cyber and GPT-6 Astra land among the current models of their task, on every independent benchmark, on price and on context.
Where each stands
Only GPT-6 Astra has a current Arena Text score: #22 of 52. Each bar is the share of current models it beats.
Independent benchmarks
Arena Text
GPT-5.6 Cyber: Not scored
GPT-6 Astra:#22of 52
1,476 Elo · ahead of 57%
Arena WebDev
GPT-5.6 Cyber: Not scored
GPT-6 Astra:#2of 46
1,773 Elo · ahead of 98%
GPQA Diamond
GPT-5.6 Cyber: Not scored
GPT-6 Astra:#2of 41
95.8% · ahead of 98%
FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)
GPT-5.6 Cyber: Not scored
GPT-6 Astra:#1of 41
93.7% · ahead of 98%
SimpleQA Verified
GPT-5.6 Cyber: Not scored
GPT-6 Astra:#2of 38
75.6% · ahead of 97%
Price and context
Price per 1M input tokens
GPT-5.6 Cyber:#56of 58
$12.50 · cheaper than 4%
GPT-6 Astra:#52of 58
$10 · cheaper than 5%
Price per 1M output tokens
GPT-5.6 Cyber:#56of 58
$75 · cheaper than 2%
GPT-6 Astra:#52of 58
$50 · cheaper than 5%
Context window
GPT-5.6 Cyber:#56of 67
400K tokens · longer than 17%
GPT-6 Astra:#1of 67
1.05M tokens · longer than 85%
Quality against price
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 price: the data
| Model | Provider | Blended price per 1M tokens | Arena Text (Elo) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 4 Carbon | $4 | 1,528 | |
| 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 Cyber costs 1.4 times as much as GPT-6 Astra, at each provider's listed rates.
10M input and 2M output tokens
GPT-5.6 Cyber costs 1.4× as much
- GPT-5.6 Cyber
- $275
- GPT-6 Astra
- $200
The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached
GPT-5.6 Cyber costs 1.5× as much
- GPT-5.6 Cyber
- $173.75
- GPT-6 Astra
- $119
| Workload or rate | GPT-5.6 Cyber | GPT-6 Astra |
|---|---|---|
| Example workloads | ||
| 10M input and 2M output tokens | $275 | $200 (better) |
| The same, with 9M of the input tokens cached | $173.75 | $119 (better) |
| Other listed rates | ||
| 1M input tokens, cached | $1.25 | $1 (better) |
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
GPT-5.6 Cyber
Where it leads
No measured lead over GPT-6 Astra in this data.
Best for
- Daybreak Red teams that need exploit validation and security testing at a lower price than GPT-6 Cyber
Watch out for
- Limited access: available only to approved Daybreak Red customers
- OpenAI rates it High but not Critical in cybersecurity, and says it sometimes writes shorter, less detailed vulnerability reports than GPT-5.6 Sol
- OpenAI's newer GPT-6 Cyber (November 5, 2026) scores 48.5% on ExploitGym in OpenAI's chart, against 32.1% for this model; no independent benchmark score is recorded here
GPT-6 Astra
Where it leads
- Lower input and output prices, $10 and $50 vs $12.50 and $75 per 1M tokens
- Larger context window 1,050,000 vs 400,000 tokens
- Cheaper cached input, $1 vs $1.25 per 1M tokens
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
From benchmark to production
Building on GPT-5.6 Cyber 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
FAQ
GPT-5.6 Cyber vs GPT-6 Astra FAQ
Which is cheaper, GPT-5.6 Cyber or GPT-6 Astra?
GPT-6 Astra is 20% cheaper per 1M input tokens than GPT-5.6 Cyber, $10 vs $12.50. For 10M input and 2M output tokens, GPT-5.6 Cyber costs $275 and GPT-6 Astra $200 at standard rates.
Which is cheaper with prompt caching, GPT-5.6 Cyber or GPT-6 Astra?
GPT-5.6 Cyber charges $1.25 per 1M cached input tokens, 90% below its standard input rate, and GPT-6 Astra $1, 90% below. With 9M of 10M input tokens cached and 2M output tokens, GPT-5.6 Cyber costs $173.75 and GPT-6 Astra $119.
How do GPT-5.6 Cyber and GPT-6 Astra compare in OpenAI's own results?
In the GPT-6 Cyber launch post (November 5, 2026), GPT-6 Astra leads on ExploitGym (strict supplied-vulnerability pass@1), 42.4% to 32.1%. These are OpenAI's figures, not independent measurements.
Which has the larger context window, GPT-5.6 Cyber or GPT-6 Astra?
GPT-6 Astra has the larger context window, 1,050,000 vs 400,000 tokens. Both return up to 128,000 tokens per response.
Further reading
More on GPT-5.6 Cyber and GPT-6 Astra
Articles on GPT-5.6 Cyber and GPT-6 Astra
- GPT-Rosalind-6: OpenAI's Biology Model and Trusted AccessNovember 1, 2026
- OpenAI Models on Google Cloud: What Changes for AI TeamsOctober 22, 2026
- Gemini 4 Argon Benchmarks: What Independent Tests ShowOctober 1, 2026
- Gemini 4 Pro Leaks: What's Verified and What's HypeOctober 1, 2026
- GDPval-AA Chart Fact-Check: Opus 5.5 vs GPT-6 Astra on CostSeptember 24, 2026
- Claude Opus 5.5 Benchmarks: What the Chart Shows and HidesSeptember 23, 2026
Related comparisons
- GPT-5.6 Cyber vs GPT-6 Cyber
- Gemini 4 Argon vs GPT-6 Astra
- GPT-5.6 Cyber vs GPT-Rosalind-6
- GPT-6.1 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra
- Claude Fable 5.1 vs GPT-5.6 Cyber
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs GPT-6 Astra
- Claude Mythos 5.1 vs GPT-5.6 Cyber
- Claude Opus 5.5 vs GPT-6 Astra
- Claude Fable 5 vs GPT-5.6 Cyber
- GPT-6 Astra vs GPT-6 Luna
- GPT-5.6 Cyber vs GPT-5.6 Sol
- GPT-6 Astra vs GPT-6 Sol
Production evaluation
Choosing between GPT-5.6 Cyber and GPT-6 Astra?
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