GPT-6-Astra
OpenAI's top-end frontier model and the flagship of the GPT-6 generation, aimed at the most demanding reasoning, coding and multimodal work. The premium choice when capability outweighs price.
At a glance
Released
Oct 1, 2026
Provider
OpenAI
Context window
1,000,000 tokens
Max output
128,000 tokens
Modalities
Text + image → text
Knowledge cutoff
June 2026
API model ID
gpt-6-astraLicense
Proprietary (API only)
Pricing
Standard
Input$10 / 1M
Output$50 / 1M
Batch (50% off)
Input$5 / 1M
Output$25 / 1M
A typical 1,500-token prompt with a 650-token answer costs ≈ $0.048 on the standard tier. Run your own prompt through the calculator →
What's new vs the previous model
Compared withGPT-5.5 (February 2026)
- Markedly stronger reasoning and coding
- Better multimodal understanding
- Larger context with steadier long-range recall
- Premium pricing at the top of the range
- Higher latency than smaller GPT-6 models
Best use cases
Frontier reasoning
Solves hard analytical and technical problems end to end.
Complex coding
Builds and debugs across large projects with strong planning.
Multimodal analysis
Reads images alongside text for richer understanding.
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- Frontier-level capability
- Strong multimodal
- Large context
- Excellent coding
Limitations
- Expensive
- Higher latency
How to test it
- No-code: open chatgpt.com and pick GPT-6-Astra from the model switcher — no API key needed.
- Playground: sign in to the OpenAI Platform and run prompts in the workbench, then copy the generated code.
- API: create a key in the OpenAI Platform and call the API (example below).
curl https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "gpt-6-astra",
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Explain tokenization in one paragraph."}]
}'