Is GPT-5.6 Sol a good deal?
Whether anything in this catalogue beats GPT-5.6 Sol on both quality and price, and what you give up if it does. A computation on the current catalogue, not an opinion.
13 undominated of 136 · Sep 23, 2026
As of Sep 23, 2026, Gemini 3.8 Flash scores higher and costs less than GPT-5.6 Sol for Balanced on LMArena, but it is not a drop-in. You would give up: context, max output.
Inspect model evidence Compare differences & requirements
Gemini 3.8 Flash scores 39.6 points higher and costs 63% less, but you would give up: context, max output.
LMArena Elo · higher is better
Scale starts at 1040 Elo
1455.1
Effective $/M · Balanced · lower is better
$4.00/M
LMArena Elo · higher is better
Scale starts at 1040 Elo
1494.7
Effective $/M · Balanced · lower is better
$1.50/M
GPT-5.6 Sol takes file, image, text, returns up to 128,000 tokens from a 1,050,000-token context, and is listed by 7 sellers.
Compared against 136 rated, priced models on this lens: nothing dominates it outright, 5 more dominate it but give something up. GPT-5.6 Sol scores 1455.1 at $4.00 per million tokens for this mix.
Higher score, lower price, named losses
Not a drop-in. The loss is why these are not a recommendation.
| Model | LMArena | Effective $/M | You give up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | 1494.7 | $1.50/M | context, max output |
| Gemini 3.7 Flash | 1490.5 | $1.50/M | context, max output |
| Muse Spark 1.3 | 1489.7 | $2.00/M | context |
| Muse Spark 1.1 | 1480.2 | $2.00/M | context |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | 1476.1 | $1.50/M | context, max output |
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Constraint: replacements must preserve the model’s capabilities; any losses remain named trade-offs.
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