OpenAI publishes an official price list for its API, so figuring out the real ChatGPT API cost should be easy. Then you actually read the list, and the questions start. What does “$5 per 1M tokens” mean for a chatbot that talks to 200 visitors a day? Do you pay for the model’s “thinking” time? And why do two models with nearly identical names differ 25x in price? 🤔<\/p>\n\n\n
This guide turns the official price list into real numbers. Every figure below comes straight from OpenAI’s pricing page<\/a> and model documentation, and the math is worked out per use case: content generation, website chatbots, and customer support automation. By the end, budgeting for the API stops being guesswork.<\/p>\n\n\n In a hurry? These are the current flagship text models and their standard rates:<\/p>\n\n\n Keep reading for the full picture, because the model you pick matters far less than how many tokens your workflow burns. 💸<\/p>\n\n \r\n Model<\/th> Input (per 1M tokens)<\/th> Cached input<\/th> Output (per 1M tokens)<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> gpt-5.6-sol<\/td> $5.00<\/td> $0.50<\/td> $30.00<\/td><\/tr> gpt-5.6-terra<\/td> $2.00<\/td> $0.20<\/td> $12.00<\/td><\/tr> gpt-5.6-luna<\/td> $0.20<\/td> $0.02<\/td> $1.20<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n