GPT-6 Astra vs GPT-5.5 Pro
Head-to-head technical comparison of intelligence, capabilities, and API pricing.
Which should you use?
GPT-6 Astra supersedes GPT-5.5 Pro in OpenAI's line-up, so this is an upgrade question rather than a bake-off.
GPT-6 Astra is also cheaper — $10 against $30 per 1M input tokens — so staying on GPT-5.5 Pro costs more for less.
Cost is the sharper difference: GPT-5.5 Pro is 3x the input price of GPT-6 Astra ($30 against $10 per 1M), so at volume the choice is usually decided by budget rather than benchmarks.
Pick GPT-6 Astra when
- Higher composite index — 96.7 against 94.2, a gap of 2.5 points.
- Ahead on Arena Elo by 28 points (1496 vs 1468), which is outside the board's published confidence intervals.
- Stronger on MMLU-Pro: 95.8% against 94.2%.
- Cheaper input tokens — $10 against $30 per 1M, so GPT-5.5 Pro costs 3x as much to feed.
- Better value per point of measured capability: $0.103 per index point against $0.318.
Pick GPT-5.5 Pro when
On these measures GPT-5.5 Pro does not lead GPT-6 Astra anywhere, so pick it only for reasons outside this table — an existing integration, a region, or a contract.
Value per point of measured capability, at list input pricing: GPT-6 Astra $0.103 · GPT-5.5 Pro $0.318 per index point. Run your own token mix through the token cost calculator — a comparison at list price ignores caching and batch discounts, which move real bills more than this gap does.
Where these numbers come from
Figures as of 2026-09-07. Arena Elo and pricing are read from the public board and each vendor's own pricing page; see the full leaderboard for all 34 models and which columns are measured rather than estimated, or the benchmark matrix for scores benchmark by benchmark.