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GPT-6 Astra Cost Calculator

GPT-6 Astra is the highest-priced GPT-6 tier — where a single production workload can run into thousands of dollars a month, and estimating before you ship matters most. Enter your token usage below to project Astra costs per request, per day, per month, and per year, with prompt caching and service tiers included. The widget also prices the same workload on Sol and Luna, so you can see exactly what the top tier adds to the bill.

Pricing source: OpenAI official pricing · Last verified: September 26, 2026 · Manually verified

GPT-6 Astra pricing, explained

OpenAI's official pricing page lists two rate columns for GPT-6 Astra — short context and long context. Both are reproduced below; the calculator on this page uses the short-context column.

Rate (per 1M tokens)Short contextLong context
Input$10.00$20.00
Cached input$1.00$2.00
Output$50.00$75.00

At Astra's rates, the structure of your bill matters as much as its size. Output tokens cost five times input tokens ($50.00 vs $10.00 per 1M), so generation-heavy workloads escalate fast — and long-context requests push input to $20.00 and output to $75.00. The counterweight is caching: cached input is one-tenth the price of fresh input ($1.00 vs $10.00), which means caching saves the most absolute dollars on this tier: $9.00 per 1M cached input tokens, vs $1.80 on Sol and $0.09 on Luna. Service-tier multipliers are standard across GPT-6: Standard 1.0×, Flex 0.5×, Batch 0.5× — an official 50% discount for deprioritized or deferred processing.

Worked examples

Enterprise RAG pipeline

50,000 input + 2,000 output tokens per request, 10,000 requests/month, 60% prompt caching.

$0.33 / request  ·  $3,300 / month  ·  $39,600 / year

fresh input 20K × $10.00 + cached 30K × $1.00 + output 2K × $50.00 (per 1M)

Same RAG workload on GPT-6 Sol

Identical workload (50K in / 2K out, 10K requests/month, 60% cache) priced at Sol's rates.

$0.066 / request  ·  $660 / month — 80% lower than Astra

This is a pure price comparison. It says nothing about which model fits your use case.

Same RAG workload at long-context rates

Identical workload, but priced at Astra's long-context column ($20.00 / $2.00 / $75.00).

$0.61 / request  ·  $6,100 / month

fresh input 20K × $20.00 + cached 30K × $2.00 + output 2K × $75.00 (per 1M)

All examples use the Standard tier (1.0×), last verified September 26, 2026. The calculator on this page uses short-context rates.

Frequently asked questions

How much does GPT-6 Astra cost per 1 million tokens?

At short-context rates, GPT-6 Astra costs $10.00 per 1M input tokens, $1.00 per 1M cached input tokens, and $50.00 per 1M output tokens. Long-context rates are $20.00 input, $2.00 cached input, and $75.00 output. The calculator on this page uses the short-context rates.

When do GPT-6 Astra's long-context rates apply?

OpenAI's official pricing page lists separate short-context and long-context rate columns for Astra. Long-context rates ($20.00 input / $2.00 cached / $75.00 output per 1M tokens) apply to requests that exceed the short-context threshold; the exact boundary is defined on OpenAI's pricing page. The calculator on this page uses short-context rates, so if your workloads are long-context, budget exactly double on the input side and 1.5× on output.

How much does an enterprise RAG workload cost on GPT-6 Astra?

A representative enterprise RAG workload — 50,000 input and 2,000 output tokens per request, 10,000 requests per month, 60% prompt caching — costs $0.33 per request, or $3,300 per month ($39,600 per year) on the Standard tier at short-context rates.

How much cheaper is GPT-6 Sol for the same workload?

Purely on price, the same 50K-input / 2K-output RAG workload at 60% caching costs $660/month on Sol versus $3,300/month on Astra — about five times less. The gap comes straight from the rate tables ($2.00 vs $10.00 input, $10.00 vs $50.00 output per 1M tokens). See the full side-by-side breakdown on the Sol vs Astra cost comparison page. This is a mathematical cost comparison only.

Does prompt caching matter at GPT-6 Astra's price level?

More than anywhere else, because the absolute dollars are largest. Cached input on Astra costs $1.00 per 1M tokens versus $10.00 fresh. In the enterprise RAG example above, caching 60% of input cuts the input bill from $5,000 to $2,300 per month — a $2,700 monthly saving that brings the total from $6,000 down to $3,300.

Can Flex or Batch tiers reduce GPT-6 Astra costs?

Yes. Both Flex and Batch are officially documented 0.5× multipliers — a 50% discount for lower-priority (Flex) or deferred 24-hour-turnaround (Batch) processing. The $3,300/month enterprise RAG example would drop to $1,650/month on the Batch tier, where the workload's schedule allows it.

Pricing source

All GPT-6 Astra prices on this page are copied from the OpenAI official pricing page. Last verified: September 26, 2026 · Manually verified — there is no live price feed, and we don't pretend there is. The full policy, including which rate tables the calculator uses and why, is published on the Pricing Methodology page.

Independence disclosure: this is an independent cost-estimation tool. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by OpenAI. Model names and prices belong to their providers — always confirm on the official pricing page before making decisions.

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