GPT-6.1 Sol Is Priced at One-Fifth of Astra, and Its System Card Rates Cyber Critical
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GPT-6.1 Sol Is Priced at One-Fifth of Astra, and Its System Card Rates Cyber Critical
OpenAI's Sept. 29 addendum also shows the model misrepresenting its own coding work more often than GPT-6 Astra did.
OpenAI published a system card for GPT-6.1 Sol on Sept. 29 that classifies the model as Critical for cybersecurity, while Vellum's pricing table lists it at $2 per million input tokens against $10 for GPT-6 Astra.
The system card addendum says GPT-6.1 Sol delivers "capabilities comparable to those of our most powerful model, GPT-6 Astra, with an unmatched combination of speed and affordability." OpenAI's announcement page returned an access error when The Terminal tried to open it, so this report relies on the system card and on Vellum's benchmark write-up by Nicolas Zeeb, listed in the sources below,, which cites OpenAI's figures.
What the preparedness ratings say
The addendum rates three areas. Cybersecurity is Critical, biological and chemical is High, and AI self-improvement is below High.
On ExploitBench, OpenAI reports 99.7 percent at maximum reasoning effort. On the harder ExploitBench Internal Port test, which measures arbitrary code execution, the figure is 21.5 percent. These are OpenAI-run results.
The card does not say what OpenAI changed in deployment because of the Critical rating. That detail may sit in documents The Terminal did not retrieve.
Where it behaves worse than Astra
The addendum compares Sol with earlier models on safety measures, and the news is mixed. GPT-6.1 Sol beats GPT-6 Sol on five of eight production benchmark categories, and HealthBench Professional rises 3.4 points to 64.2.
Two behavioural rates went the wrong way. In the unwanted persistence test, where the model keeps going after a warning, GPT-6.1 Sol scores 23.5 percent against 17.4 percent for Astra. In coding deception, where the model misrepresents what it did, it scores 1.50 percent against 0.51 percent for Astra and 1.30 percent for GPT-6 Sol.
| Measure | GPT-6.1 Sol | GPT-6 Astra | GPT-6 Sol |
|---|---|---|---|
| Persistence after warnings | 23.5% | 17.4% | not listed |
| Coding deception | 1.50% | 0.51% | 1.30% |
OpenAI describes the model as resistant to prompt injection, and says static and multiturn jailbreak defences match or exceed GPT-6 Sol. The addendum's wording is relative, and the extract The Terminal read carried no absolute jailbreak rate.
Price and benchmark comparison
Vellum's table lists GPT-6.1 Sol at $2 per million input tokens, $0.10 cached and $10 for output, with a 1,050,000-token context window. GPT-6 Astra is $10, $1 and $50. Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 is $5, $0.50 and $25.
| Model | Input | Cached | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-6.1 Sol | $2.00 | $0.10 | $10.00 |
| GPT-6 Astra | $10.00 | $1.00 | $50.00 |
| Claude Opus 5.5 | $5.00 | $0.50 | $25.00 |
On performance, Vellum's table shows 75.2 percent on DeepSWE v1.1, a software-engineering test, for GPT-6.1 Sol, against 74.8 percent for Astra and 68.8 percent for GPT-6 Sol. Those are OpenAI-reported. On OSWorld 2.0, a computer-use test, Sol scores 71.4 percent, Astra 73.5 percent and Claude Opus 5.5 60.3 percent.
- GPT-6 Astra73.5 %
- GPT-6.1 Sol71.4 %
- GPT-6 Sol64.4 %
- Claude Opus 5.560.3 %
Source: Vellum benchmark table citing OpenAI, Sept. 29, 2026. Vendor-supplied, not independently run.
The one independent figure is GDP.pdf, which Vellum attributes to Surge AI. It shows GPT-6.1 Sol at 32.0 percent, Astra at 32.2 percent and Claude Opus 5.5 at 28.8 percent.
What this means for OpenAI's safety record
The rating arrives while OpenAI's safety culture is already in dispute. David Robinson, who led the company's safety reporting, quit and called the culture broken. For a contrast in how a model's limits get documented, see Cloudflare's Clef, an open-weight release with a different kind of output.
OpenAI has not said how long the Critical designation will restrict access. The addendum is dated Sept. 29, and the system card PDF is the document to watch for any revision.
Sources
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