OpenAI Launches GPT-6.1 Sol, Offers Astra-like Performance at a Lower Cost

On September 29, 2026, OpenAI unveiled its new model, GPT-6.1 Sol, which promises performance comparable to its flagship GPT-6 Astra but at a significantly reduced cost. Reports indicate that GPT-6.1 Sol delivers nearly the same level of intelligence for coding and intelligent tasks as GPT-6 Astra, with a cost of just 10 cents per million tokens, approximately half the price of Astra. The new model excelled in several benchmark tests; for instance, in the DeepSWE 1.1 benchmark, GPT-6.1 Sol achieved the same score as GPT-6 Astra while requiring only one-fifth the number of tokens per task. In the AutomationBench benchmark, it performed slightly below GPT-6 Astra but outperformed Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5, consuming about one-third fewer tokens. OpenAI also noted that GPT-6.1 Sol shows improved factual accuracy, particularly in low-reasoning scenarios, where the error rate dropped from 11.4% to 7.7%. While GPT-6 Astra remains OpenAI's most powerful model, its release has been indefinitely delayed due to safety concerns. OpenAI recommends GPT-6.1 Sol for repetitive and long-running workloads in coding and application documentation.