OpenAI announced GPT-6.1 Terra as a lower-cost model for visual reasoning, computer use and everyday writing. Standard API prices are $1 per million input tokens, 5 cents per million cached input tokens and $5 per million output tokens. OpenAI says those prices are 50% below GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-6.1 Sol.
On OpenAI’s Agents’ Last Exam at medium reasoning, the company reports a score 15 percentage points above GPT-5.6 Terra at about one-third the cost, performance on par with GPT-6 Astra at about one-tenth Astra’s token price, and task completion more than three times faster than GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol. These are vendor-reported evaluations, not independent production measurements.
For a CTO, the practical question is whether the price and latency profile changes the break-even point for supervised browser and desktop workflows. The release also classifies Terra at the Critical cybersecurity threshold under OpenAI’s Preparedness Framework; lower unit cost does not remove deployment controls. OpenAI.