OpenAI has a new mid-tier model, and the headline is simple: more capable, much cheaper.
GPT-6.1 Terra is described by OpenAI as a fast, efficient model that combines detailed visual reasoning and precise computer use with clearer, more natural writing. It’s aimed at the tasks that fill a normal workday, from drafting proposals and reading technical drawings to filling out forms and editing videos.
Cheaper, and it shows
OpenAI says standard API prices for Terra are 50% lower than those of GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-6.1 Sol. The company gives a very practical example of what that unlocks: automating high-volume work like reading incoming invoices and entering their details into accounting software. In ChatGPT Work and Codex, the same usage allowance now covers more tasks.
On OpenAI’s Agents’ Last Exam benchmark, Terra scores 15 percentage points higher than GPT-5.6 Terra at medium reasoning effort, at about one-third of the cost, and performs on par with GPT-6 Astra at a tenth of its price per token. OpenAI also says it completes tasks more than three times faster than GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol.
Fewer mistakes, better code
Accuracy has had a big push. On OpenAI’s internal benchmark of error-inducing prompts, the error rate at low reasoning effort fell from 53.6% with GPT-5.6 Terra to 16.7% with the new model. At maximum effort, it fell to 4.3%.
Coding improved too. On Terminal-Bench 4.0, which tests command-line coding agents, Terra solves 50.3% of tasks at maximum effort, more than double GPT-5.6 Terra’s 21.5%. OpenAI is upfront that for the most complex coding work, GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Astra remain the better choice.
On safety, OpenAI says Terra meets the Critical threshold in cybersecurity under its Preparedness Framework and keeps the protections developed for GPT-6 Astra.
The model is available in ChatGPT Work, Codex and the API. AWS also announced general availability on Amazon Bedrock, where it supports up to 1 million input tokens and accepts text and image inputs.
Why it matters
Cheaper, faster models are what turn AI from a demo into a daily tool. If you’ve held back on automating repetitive admin, like processing invoices, filling forms or summarising documents, because of cost, this kind of price drop changes the maths. It’s worth re-running your cost estimates and testing Terra on your own workflows, while keeping a human check on anything that matters.