GPT-5.6 Luna pricing in 2026
What one task costs on GPT-5.6 Luna
Per-million-token prices are hard to feel, so here are typical token counts for common jobs priced with GPT-5.6 Luna. Figures are USD at the rates above and exclude prompt caching and batch discounts.
| Task | Tokens (in / out) | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Code review of a 500-line pull request | 60,000 / 4,000 | $0.017 |
| Debug one failing test | 40,000 / 6,000 | $0.015 |
| Generate a landing page in one shot | 3,000 / 30,000 | $0.037 |
| Draft a 1,200-word article | 2,000 / 2,500 | $0.0034 |
| Answer a question from a 20-page document | 25,000 / 800 | $0.0060 |
| Multi-step agent run (10 tool calls) | 250,000 / 25,000 | $0.080 |
| All of the above, once | $0.158 |
Cheaper at the same or better capability: GLM-5.3 Flash runs the same set of tasks for $0.091 instead of $0.158.
GPT-5.6 Luna by OpenAI costs $0.20 per 1M input tokens and $1.20 per 1M output tokens — about 1.1M tokens per $1. Prices last verified 2026-09-19.
The verdict
OpenAI's fast tier — an index of 38 at just $0.20 / $1.20 per 1M tokens. That's ChatGPT-grade capability at a budget price, ideal for high-volume, latency-sensitive pipelines like classification, extraction and simple agent steps where you don't need frontier reasoning.
A concrete example: sending 100,000 input tokens and getting back 20,000 output tokens with GPT-5.6 Luna costs about $0.04 at current prices.
Who is GPT-5.6 Luna for?
GPT-5.6 Luna is OpenAI's budget tier: ChatGPT-grade capability (index 38) at $0.20 in / $1.20 out per 1M tokens. That makes it a strong default for classification, extraction, summarization and any high-volume pipeline where frontier reasoning would be wasted.
It's not the model for one-shot product work or polished UI — expect to iterate. If speed and price matter above all, Luna is one of the best mainstream options on a budget; if you need quality on the first pass, budget for Terra or a Claude model instead.
Strengths & weaknesses
- Strength: ChatGPT quality at a budget price
- Best for: Budget, Bulk
- Weakness: Weak at front-end design and mid-tier at one-shot coding — a budget and bulk model first.
GPT-5.6 Luna key facts
| Provider | ChatGPT pricing |
|---|---|
| Input price | $0.20 / 1M tokens |
| Output price | $1.20 / 1M tokens |
| Tokens / $1 | 1.1M |
| Intelligence / $1 | 400,000 |
| Context window | 1.1M tokens |
| Tier | fast |
| Speed | Fast |
| Intelligence index | 38 / 100 |
| Released | 2026-07-09 |
| Last verified | 2026-09-19 |
What GPT-5.6 Luna delivers for your budget
For a coding workload, here is roughly what each monthly budget buys:
| Budget | Tokens / month | Months of workload |
|---|---|---|
| $20 | 46.4M | 71.4x |
| $50 | 116.1M | 178.6x |
| $100 | 232.1M | 357.1x |
Other ChatGPT models
How GPT-5.6 Luna compares to its closest rivals
Rather than repeating the full catalog on every page, here are the three current models nearest to GPT-5.6 Luna on the intelligence index — and why you might still pick one instead:
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Claude) — $2 input / $10 output per 1M tokens. Why you might pick it: Strong coding at mid-tier price.
- Gemini 3.7 Flash (Gemini) — $0.75 input / $3.75 output per 1M tokens. Why you might pick it: Frontier-adjacent index at Flash price.
- DeepSeek V4 Pro (DeepSeek) — $0.66 input / $1.98 output per 1M tokens. Why you might pick it: Unbeatable frontier value.
GPT-5.6 Luna — frequently asked questions
How much does GPT-5.6 Luna cost?
GPT-5.6 Luna by OpenAI costs $0.20 per 1M input tokens and $1.20 per 1M output tokens.
How many tokens per dollar does GPT-5.6 Luna give you?
On a typical 1:3 input-to-output mix, GPT-5.6 Luna delivers around 1.1M tokens per dollar — an intelligence-per-dollar score of 400000.
What is GPT-5.6 Luna's context window?
GPT-5.6 Luna supports a context window of 1.1M tokens.
Is GPT-5.6 Luna worth it in 2026?
GPT-5.6 Luna is ChatGPT's fast tier model. Use the AI Intelligence Calculator to see how its value compares to every other model at your budget.