Batch API Discounts Explained: 50% Off the Work That Can Wait
Which models offer a batch discount, what the discounted rate works out to, and which parts of a workload belong in the batch lane.
Updated September 19, 2026
Every major provider sells the same models twice: once for immediate answers, and once at a discount for work that can wait. The discounted lane is called the Batch API, and it is usually 50% off. If any part of your workload does not need a reply in the next second, this is the easiest money you will save.
How batch pricing works
- You send a file of requests instead of one call at a time, and collect the results later.
- The provider promises a window, typically up to 24 hours. In practice most batches finish much sooner, but you cannot count on it.
- Both input and output tokens are discounted, and the discount stacks with nothing else — a batch request is simply billed at the lower rate.
Which models offer a batch discount
| Model | Provider | Discount | Standard blended | Batch blended |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-6 Astra | OpenAI | 50% | $20.00 | $10.00 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | OpenAI | 50% | $8.00 | $4.00 |
| GPT-5.6 Terra | OpenAI | 50% | $4.50 | $2.25 |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | OpenAI | 50% | $0.45 | $0.225 |
| Claude Fable 5.1 | Anthropic | 50% | $20.00 | $10.00 |
| Claude Opus 5 | Anthropic | 50% | $10.00 | $5.00 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Anthropic | 50% | $4.00 | $2.00 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Anthropic | 50% | $2.00 | $1.00 |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | 50% | $1.50 | $0.75 | |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 50% | $3.375 | $1.688 | |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | 50% | $0.85 | $0.425 |
Models missing from this table have no published batch rate. That does not always mean the work has to cost full price — some providers discount off-peak hours or slower service tiers instead, and those terms are listed in the notes on each model page.
What a 50% discount is worth
Take the support chatbot workload we use across this site: 100,000 replies a month, ~1,500 input tokens (system prompt + history) and ~400 output tokens each. At list prices that costs $700.00 a month on Claude Sonnet 5. Move the half of it that is not live chat — nightly tagging, summaries, evaluation runs — to the batch lane and that share is billed at half price.
Work that belongs in the batch lane
- Classifying, tagging or moderating a backlog of content
- Generating embeddings, summaries or translations for a whole corpus
- Evaluation and regression runs against a test set
- Enrichment jobs that feed a nightly report
Work that does not
- Anything a person is waiting on: chat, autocomplete, an agent step
- Requests that depend on the previous answer, since each round trip waits for the whole batch
- Very small jobs, where the extra plumbing costs more engineering time than it saves
Do not forget prompt caching
Batch and caching solve different problems: batch discounts work you can delay, caching discounts context you repeat. Used together on a workload that has both, they compound. The pricing basics guide explains how each is billed.