OpenAI Makes GPT-5.6 Sol Cheaper for Metered Use, Not Easier to Access

OpenAI has lowered GPT-5.6 Sol’s metered pricing through at least November 21, with the sharpest cut landing on the generated output that can drive large model bills. The offer reduces API and eligible credit-paid use; it does not add capacity to ChatGPT subscriptions.

The promotion covers API calls and eligible activity paid with purchased credits in ChatGPT Work and Codex. Included usage, five-hour limits, weekly limits and subscription allowances for Plus, Pro and Business remain unchanged. For subscribers, purchased credits can therefore extend eligible paid activity without changing the usage bundled into a plan.

Sol’s input rate fell from $5 to $4 per million tokens, while cached input fell from $0.50 to $0.40. Output fell from $30 to $20 per million tokens, making generated tokens the largest component of the promotion.

GPT-5.6 Sol promotional API rates

Input

$5→$4

per million tokens

Input pricing moved from $5 to $4 per million tokens.

Cached input

$0.50→$0.40

per million tokens

Cached-input pricing moved from $0.50 to $0.40 per million tokens.

Output

$30→$20

per million tokens

Output pricing moved from $30 to $20 per million tokens.

A task using one million input tokens and producing one million output tokens would cost $24 under the temporary pricing, versus $35 previously. That example excludes tool-call fees, priority processing, cache writes and the higher rates for prompts exceeding 272,000 input tokens.

How the discount changes with the workload

• Tasks that generate substantial output receive the largest relative benefit because output has the steepest rate reduction.
• Workloads weighted toward new input or cached context save less than output-heavy jobs. The actual bill depends on the mix of all three token types.
• That mix can matter in long tasks: Sol supports a 1.05 million-token context window and outputs of up to 128,000 tokens.
• For eligible purchased-credit activity, the updated credit card lists 100 credits per million input tokens, 10 for cached input and 500 for output, compared with previous rates of 125, 12.5 and 750 credits.

OpenAI announced the reduction on August 21, and the promotion runs through at least November 21. API access is already available at the new rates, while eligible purchased-credit use in ChatGPT Work and Codex is rolling out. The company can restore the earlier rates after the promotion, so a Sol evaluation made during this period is a test of a promotional bill rather than a permanent price commitment.