Pricing (effective July 30, 2026)
Verified against OpenAI's official pricing page (developers.openai.com). All prices in USD per 1M tokens.
| Tier | Input | Cached Input | Output | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard (Short context) | $0.20 | $0.02 | $1.20 | ≤272K input tokens. Default rate |
| Long context | $0.40 | $0.04 | $1.80 | >272K input tokens. 2× input, 1.5× output |
| Batch | $0.10 | $0.01 | $0.60 | 50% off Standard. Up to 24h completion |
| Flex | $0.10 | $0.01 | $0.60 | Lower priority. 50% off Standard |
$1.00 / $6.00 (at GA launch, July 9, 2026)
→ $0.20 / $1.20 (July 30, 2026 — 80% cut, just 21 days after launch)
* Cache writes are 1.25× standard input ($0.25). Cache reads are 10% of standard input. Minimum cache life: 30 minutes.
Primary sources: developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing · GPT-5.6 Luna Model Docs (verified 2026-08-07)
Model Specifications
Sources: OpenAI GPT-5.6 Luna Docs · GPT-5.6 Announcement
Performance — Beyond "Nano"
Positioned as the nano-tier equivalent, yet outperforms the previous flagship on key benchmarks.
- Artificial Analysis Quality Index: 51 — high composite score for a lightweight model, in the upper tier
- Agents' Last Exam: Beats GPT-5.5. Only 2.4 points behind Sol on professional agentic tasks
- HealthBench Professional / DeepSWE: Both exceed GPT-5.5
- Coding: BenchLM rank #6 out of 215 models
- Vision Evals (Roboflow): 74.1% overall (#6 of 16)
- vs Claude Fable 5: Beats Fable 5 on Agents' Last Exam at ~1/16th the estimated cost per task
OpenAI claims Luna delivers "frontier-class performance from one year ago, at ~6% of the cost per task and ~9× the speed."
Sources: Artificial Analysis · BenchLM.ai · OpenAI
Competitor Price Comparison
After the 80% cut, Luna is now among the cheapest lightweight models. All prices in USD per 1M tokens (standard, short context).
| Model | Provider | Input | Output | vs Luna | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.6 Luna | OpenAI | $0.20 | $1.20 | — | Baseline |
| GPT-5.4 nano | OpenAI | $0.20 | $1.25 | Same input | Older gen. Luna is more capable |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | $0.30 | $2.50 | Luna cheaper | Luna: 33% cheaper input, 52% cheaper output | |
| Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | $0.25 | $1.50 | Luna cheaper | Detail page. Luna: 20% cheaper input & output | |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | $0.10 | $0.40 | Gemini cheaper | Older gen, large capability gap | |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Anthropic | $1.00 | $5.00 | Luna cheaper | Luna: 80% cheaper input, 76% cheaper output |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | DeepSeek | $0.14 | $0.28 | DeepSeek cheaper | Current official rate. Future price increase announced |
* DeepSeek V4 Flash is currently listed at $0.14 per 1M cache-miss input tokens and $0.28 per 1M output tokens. DeepSeek has announced a future overall price increase, but has not published the new rates or an effective date.
Sources: official pricing pages from each provider (verified 2026-08-07). See full pricing comparison. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite details →
Ideal Use Cases
High-throughput, cost-sensitive workloads. Luna excels in these scenarios:
Chat & Customer Support
Real-time high-volume conversations. Low latency meets low cost.
Classification & Extraction
Document classification, sentiment analysis, entity extraction — routine NLP.
Lightweight Agent Workflows
Automation with tool use / function calling. Agent performance beats GPT-5.5.
Summarization & Drafting
Bulk document summarization, email drafting, proofreading at scale.
Batch Processing & Pipelines
Batch/Flex for 50% additional savings. Ideal for overnight data processing.
RAG & Search-Augmented Gen
1.05M context window for large-document search and Q&A.
GPT-5.6 Family Selection Guide
| Model | Input | Output | When to Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.6 Sol | $5.00 | $30.00 | Hardest tasks, long-horizon agents, high-failure-cost work |
| GPT-5.6 Terra | $2.00 | $12.00 | Standard coding, analysis, production agents |
| GPT-5.6 Luna ⬅ | $0.20 | $1.20 | High-throughput, cost-sensitive, routine processing, first-pass review |
💡 Strategy: Start with Luna, escalate to Terra→Sol when quality is insufficient. For text-centric workloads, Luna is the cost leader. For multimodal workloads including audio/video, also consider Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite.
Estimate Your Actual Costs
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🧮 Open Token Calculator →📊 Full Pricing Comparison · ⚡ Compare with Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite · 🗓️ Release Timeline · 🔗 OpenAI Official Pricing
⚠️ Disclaimer
- Pricing verified against OpenAI's official page (developers.openai.com) on 2026-08-07. Subject to change without notice. Always check official pages before contracting.
- This site is informational only. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by any provider.
- Benchmark scores are as published by evaluation organizations and OpenAI. Your mileage may vary.