OpenAI Releases GPT-6.1 Terra, Focused on Visual Reasoning and Computer Operation
OpenAI has released GPT-6.1 Terra, which the company says combines detailed visual reasoning with precise computer operation and offers clearer, more natural writing, a marked improvement over GPT-5.6 Terra. The model is priced at $1 per million input tokens and $5 per million output tokens, roughly half the price of GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-6.1 Sol, and about 10 times that of GPT-6 Luna. Simon Willison notes that Terra's position in OpenAI's model lineup is similar to Anthropic's Sonnet—neither the cheapest nor the most expensive—making it harder to judge when choosing.
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The original article compares Terra's position in OpenAI's model lineup and its pricing, and provides a reference to Anthropic's Sonnet tier.
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26th October 2026 - Link Blog
GPT-6.1 Terra (via) It's always interesting to note which aspects of a new model are emphasized in the release announcement.
In the case of GPT-6.1 Terra, OpenAI went with visual reasoning and computer use:
We’re introducing GPT-6.1 Terra, a fast, efficient model that combines detailed visual reasoning and precise computer use alongside clearer, more natural writing. A significant step up from GPT‑5.6 Terra, it excels at the communication and computer-based tasks that fill the workday, from drafting proposals and interpreting technical drawings to filling out forms and editing videos.
Terra sits in the same position as Sonnet in the Anthropic model collection - not the cheapest or the most expensive, making it harder to decide when to use it.
Computer use is a good example of a task that benefits from a less expensive model, since you might put it to work on automated, repetitive tasks.
OpenAI's Ted Sanders provided some useful advice in a comment on Hacker News:
Here are the pelicans for the different reasoning levels. This pelican for "max" cost 11.3161 cents and took 4 minutes and 11 seconds:
Here's a new comparison grid showing pelicans for every reasoning level of OpenAI's current frontier lineup: GPT-6 Astra, GPT-6.1 Sol, GPT-6.1 Terra, and GPT-6 Luna.
GPT-6.1 Terra is priced at $1/million input tokens and $5/million output - almost half the price of GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-6.1 Sol, and around 10x the price of GPT-6 Luna.
Posted 26th October 2026 at 11:53 pm
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This is a link post by Simon Willison, posted on 26th October 2026.
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