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Claude Opus 5.5 vs GPT-5.6 Terra: pricing and benchmarks

GPT-5.6 Terra is 50% cheaper on input tokens ($2.00 vs $4.00 per 1M). GPT-5.6 Terra is 40% cheaper on output tokens ($12.00 vs $20.00 per 1M). On our document Q&A workload (50,000 questions a month), GPT-5.6 Terra costs $1,160 a month versus $2,200 for Claude Opus 5.5, 47% less. Epoch AI has not published a capability index score for Claude Opus 5.5 yet.

Prices verified September 26, 2026.

Which should you choose?

Overall capability
Too close to call

Epoch AI has not published a capability index score for Claude Opus 5.5 yet.

Price
GPT-5.6 Terra

GPT-5.6 Terra costs $4.50 per 1M tokens (3:1 input-to-output mix) vs $8.00 for Claude Opus 5.5, 44% less.

Pricing and specs

Claude Opus 5.5GPT-5.6 Terra
ProviderAnthropicOpenAI
API model IDclaude-opus-5-5gpt-5.6-terra
Input / 1M tokens$4.00$2.00
Cached input / 1M tokens$0.20$0.20
Output / 1M tokens$20.00$12.00
Long-context rates—$4.00 in / $18.00 out on long-context requests
Context window1M tokens1.05M tokens
Max output128K tokens128K tokens
Batch discount50% off50% off

Benchmarks

Claude Opus 5.5GPT-5.6 Terra
Epoch Capabilities Index—159.1
GPQA Diamond· Science reasoning—91.1%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1–3)· Advanced math—86.0%
SimpleQA Verified· Factual accuracy—43.2%
ARC-AGI-2· Abstract reasoning—83.9%
DeepSWE· Coding—69.6%
APEX-Agents· Agentic work——

Source: Epoch AI, best recorded result per model (CC BY 4.0). A dash means no published score. See all benchmarks

Monthly cost for real workloads

WorkloadClaude Opus 5.5GPT-5.6 TerraDifference
Support chatbot
100,000 replies a month, ~1,500 input tokens (system prompt + history) and ~400 output tokens each.
$1,400$780.00GPT-5.6 Terra 44% cheaper
Document Q&A (RAG)
50,000 questions a month with ~8,000 tokens of retrieved context and ~600 output tokens each.
$2,200$1,160GPT-5.6 Terra 47% cheaper
Coding agent
10,000 agent steps a month, ~40,000 input tokens each (70% read from the prompt cache) and ~2,000 output tokens.
$936.00$536.00GPT-5.6 Terra 43% cheaper

Estimates use standard list prices and ignore cache-write surcharges. Different tokenizers can count the same text differently, so test with your own prompts.

Claude Opus 5.5 vs GPT-5.6 Terra cost calculator

Standard-tier list prices. Long-context rates apply automatically where the provider publishes a threshold. Excludes cache-write surcharges, taxes, batch and volume discounts.

Claude Opus 5.5 pricing notes

Anthropic’s recommended default model for most workloads, with adaptive thinking always on.

  • Cache reads cost 5% of the input price, against 10% on Claude Opus 5 and Sonnet 5.
  • Cache writes cost $5 (5-minute cache) or $8 (1-hour cache) per 1M tokens.
  • US-only inference (inference_geo: "us") costs 1.1x.
Anthropic official pricing ↗

GPT-5.6 Terra pricing notes

The GPT-5.6 model that balances intelligence and cost.

  • Cache writes are billed at $2.50 per 1M tokens.
  • Fast mode costs 2x the standard rate; Flex costs half.
OpenAI official pricing ↗

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 5.5 cheaper than GPT-5.6 Terra?
GPT-5.6 Terra is 50% cheaper on input tokens ($2.00 vs $4.00 per 1M). GPT-5.6 Terra is 40% cheaper on output tokens ($12.00 vs $20.00 per 1M). On our document Q&A workload (50,000 questions a month), GPT-5.6 Terra costs $1,160 a month versus $2,200 for Claude Opus 5.5, 47% less.
Which is more capable, Claude Opus 5.5 or GPT-5.6 Terra?
Epoch AI has not published a capability index score for Claude Opus 5.5 yet.
How much does Claude Opus 5.5 cost per 1M tokens?
Claude Opus 5.5 costs $4.00 per 1M input tokens and $20.00 per 1M output tokens, and $0.20 per 1M cached input tokens on Anthropic’s standard tier.
How much does GPT-5.6 Terra cost per 1M tokens?
GPT-5.6 Terra costs $2.00 per 1M input tokens and $12.00 per 1M output tokens, and $0.20 per 1M cached input tokens on OpenAI’s standard tier.
Which has the larger context window, Claude Opus 5.5 or GPT-5.6 Terra?
GPT-5.6 Terra has the larger context window: 1.05M tokens versus 1M for Claude Opus 5.5.

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