# OpenAI

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/llm-apis/openai/

Hosted inference for the GPT model family, sold per million tokens with separate short- and long-context rates.

## Who it suits

Work that fits inside the short-context rate, where the cheapest tier is $0.20 per million input tokens and the batch tier halves everything above it.

Consider something else if Long prompts cross into the long-context rate and roughly double the bill, which is a cliff the flat-rate vendors do not have.

## What the documentation says

### Pricing

- Pricing model: Per million tokens, with a second rate above the short-context threshold — long-context input and output cost roughly double. Batch, Flex, Fast and standard tiers are priced separately, and regional processing adds a 10% uplift on models released from March 2026. ([source](https://platform.openai.com/docs/pricing), read 2026-09-06)

### Inference

- Input price, top model: $10 per million input tokens for gpt-6-astra at short context, rising to $20 above the short-context threshold. gpt-5.6-sol is $4 and gpt-5.6-terra $2. ([source](https://platform.openai.com/docs/pricing), read 2026-09-06)
- Output price, top model: $50 per million output tokens for gpt-6-astra at short context, $75 at long context. ([source](https://platform.openai.com/docs/pricing), read 2026-09-06)
- Input price, cheapest model: $0.20 per million input tokens for gpt-5.6-luna at short context, with output at $1.20. ([source](https://platform.openai.com/docs/pricing), read 2026-09-06)
- Context window: 1,050,000 tokens on gpt-6-astra, of which at most 922,000 may be input. ([source](https://platform.openai.com/docs/models/gpt-6-astra), read 2026-09-06)
- Max output tokens: 128,000 tokens on gpt-6-astra. ([source](https://platform.openai.com/docs/models/gpt-6-astra), read 2026-09-06)
- Prompt caching: Supported ([source](https://platform.openai.com/docs/pricing), read 2026-09-06)
- Batch discount: 50% off input and output through the Batch API: gpt-6-astra falls from $10/$50 to $5/$25 at short context. ([source](https://platform.openai.com/docs/pricing), read 2026-09-06)

## Compared with

- [OpenAI vs Anthropic](https://inetgeek.com/compare/anthropic-vs-openai/)
- [OpenAI vs Google Gemini API](https://inetgeek.com/compare/openai-vs-google-gemini/)
- [OpenAI vs DeepSeek](https://inetgeek.com/compare/openai-vs-deepseek/)