HEAD-TO-HEAD · FLAGSHIP-TIER · VERIFIED OCTOBER 3, 2026

Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs GPT-6.1 Sol: which is actually cheaper?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 and GPT-6.1 Sol launched a day apart and landed on an identical headline price: $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens. On paper, that makes this one of the rare true price ties in the flagship-tier market.

SpecClaude Sonnet 5.5GPT-6.1 Sol
Input / 1M tokens$2.00$2.00
Output / 1M tokens$10.00$10.00
Context window1M1.05M

The output price gap

There is no output price gap here — both models charge exactly $10 per million output tokens, and both charge $2 per million input tokens. For teams comparing sticker prices alone, this matchup is a wash; any real-world cost difference will come from secondary factors like cached-input rates and long-context surcharges rather than the base input/output rates themselves.

Context window

Claude Sonnet 5.5 ships with roughly a 1 million token context window, while GPT-6.1 Sol edges slightly ahead at approximately 1.05 million tokens. Both are large enough for most document-, codebase-, and long-conversation use cases, so the gap is unlikely to be a deciding factor for typical workloads — though GPT-6.1 Sol applies a surcharge (2x input, 1.5x output) once a single request passes 272K input tokens, whereas Sonnet 5.5 holds standard rates across its full window.

Worked example

At 100M input tokens and 30M output tokens in a month, the math is identical for both models at list price: input cost = 100M × $2/M = $200; output cost = 30M × $10/M = $300; total = $200 + $300 = $500/month for Claude Sonnet 5.5, and the same $200 + $300 = $500/month for GPT-6.1 Sol. At base rates, this workload costs exactly $500/month on either model — the tie-breaker for heavy, cache-light usage will come down to cached-input pricing (GPT-6.1 Sol's $0.10/M cache read vs Sonnet 5.5's $0.20/M) or long-context surcharges on large single requests.

Prices from the LLM Price Watch daily tracker, 2026-10-03. Prices change; use the calculator with your own usage for an exact comparison, or see the full price table for every tracked model.

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 cheaper than GPT-6.1 Sol?

Not at list price — both charge $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, making them identical for standard requests. The cost difference only appears with cached input (GPT-6.1 Sol is cheaper at $0.10/M vs $0.20/M) or very long prompts, where GPT-6.1 Sol applies a surcharge past 272K tokens.

What is the context window for each model?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 offers roughly a 1 million token context window, while GPT-6.1 Sol offers approximately 1.05 million tokens. Both are large enough for most long-document or long-conversation workloads, though GPT-6.1 Sol's pricing changes above 272K input tokens in a single request.

How much would 100M input and 30M output tokens cost per month?

At list prices, both models cost exactly $500/month for this workload: $200 from 100M input tokens (at $2/M) plus $300 from 30M output tokens (at $10/M). The totals are identical since both models share the same base input and output rates.

Are Claude Sonnet 5.5 and GPT-6.1 Sol both currently available?

Yes, both models are active and available via their respective provider APIs as of early October 2026. They launched within a day of each other in late September 2026 and remain current flagship-tier offerings from Anthropic and OpenAI respectively.

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