OpenAI launches GPT-6.1 Terra: Astra-level computer use at a tenth of the price

OpenAI released GPT-6.1 Terra on 26 October 2026 for ChatGPT Work, Codex and the API. [1]

What did OpenAI release?

OpenAI calls GPT-6.1 Terra a fast, efficient model for visual reasoning, precise computer use, and clearer, more natural writing, and a significant step up from GPT-5.6 Terra. It is available to all Plus, Pro, Enterprise and Edu users in ChatGPT Work and Codex. The usage allowance covers more tasks than with GPT-5.6 Terra, and substantially more than with GPT-6.1 Sol or GPT-6 Astra. The API model id is gpt-6.1-terra. OpenAI posted the announcement on X at 18:06 UTC. [1] [2]

What does the API cost?

The API price is $1 per million input tokens, $0.05 per million cached input tokens and $5 per million output tokens. Standard API prices are 50% lower than GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-6.1 Sol. [1]

What does OpenAI claim on computer use?

On OpenAI's own Agents' Last Exam, medium effort matches GPT-6 Astra at one-tenth the price per token. At medium reasoning effort the score is 15 percentage points higher than GPT-5.6 Terra, at about one-third the cost. At max effort OpenAI says the model is over 3 times as token-efficient as Claude Opus 5.5, at one-fourth the price per token, and about 9 times lower cost per task. It completes tasks over 3 times faster than GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol. These figures are OpenAI's own. [1]

How do OpenAI's other scores compare?

On MMMU-Pro, OpenAI says GPT-6.1 Terra beats GPT-5.6 Terra at every reasoning setting and nearly matches GPT-6 Astra, which OpenAI calls its most capable frontier model, and GPT-6.1 Sol. On OSWorld 2.1, medium effort surpasses GPT-5.6 Terra's best score at a fraction of the cost per task. [1]

On OpenAI's internal test of error-inducing prompts, the low-effort error rate moved from 53.6% for GPT-5.6 Terra to 16.7%, and the max-effort rate fell 18 points to 4.3%. [1]

On Terminal-Bench 4.0 at max effort, OpenAI reports 50.3% against GPT-5.6 Terra's published 21.5%. OpenAI says GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Astra remain better for the most complex coding. On Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 at max effort, GPT-6.1 Terra surpasses GPT-6.1 Sol at lower cost and sits within five points of Claude Opus 5.5 at under one-fifth the estimated cost. [1]

What does OpenAI say about safety?

OpenAI says GPT-6.1 Terra meets the Critical threshold in cybersecurity under its Preparedness Framework and keeps the protections developed for GPT-6 Astra. It says the model is more likely to stay in scope and to disclose limitations, and that its own evals show strong prompt-injection resistance. [1]

Our read

Opinion: The tenth of the price in the headline is OpenAI's own Agents' Last Exam result, at medium effort, against GPT-6 Astra's price per token. The post lists API rates of $1, $0.05 and $5 per million tokens, and says standard prices are 50% lower than GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-6.1 Sol. It does not state GPT-6 Astra's list price. None of the benchmark figures was checked outside OpenAI's post.

What we could not verify

• Independent checks of the benchmark figures. Every score in this story comes from OpenAI's post.
• The system card. The post links it, and this story did not fetch it.
• GPT-6 Astra's API list price. The one-tenth comparison is OpenAI's price per token on Agents' Last Exam.
• A numeric multiple for the usage allowance. The post says more tasks than GPT-5.6 Terra, and substantially more than GPT-6.1 Sol or GPT-6 Astra.