Gemini 3.6 Flash vs GPT-6.1 Terra
Full profiles: Gemini 3.6 Flash (Google) and GPT-6.1 Terra (OpenAI): every benchmark, price and rank.
Updated · Data from 11 sources
As of 2 Nov 2026, GPT-6.1 Terra is ahead of Gemini 3.6 Flash on quality (65.2 vs 61.3 on the BenchLeader Index), but Gemini 3.6 Flash is 1.3× cheaper at $1.50 vs $2.00 per 1M tokens blended. Choose Gemini 3.6 Flash for knowledge (64 vs 63) and fast first answers (16.4 s vs 264.3 s), where it also streams ~2× faster; choose GPT-6.1 Terra for maths (73 vs 59), coding (70 vs 57), and agents & tools (69 vs 59). Gemini 3.6 Flash's current price runs until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00.
Key facts (as of 2 Nov 2026)
- Gemini 3.6 Flash scores 61.3 on the BenchLeader Index and GPT-6.1 Terra scores 65.2 (BenchLeader, 2 Nov 2026).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash costs $1.50 per 1M tokens blended until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00 (https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing, checked 20 Oct 2026).
- GPT-6.1 Terra costs $2.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 2 Nov 2026).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash streams ~2× faster than GPT-6.1 Terra (Artificial Analysis, 7-day median, 2 Nov 2026).
- Of the 21 benchmarks both models have, GPT-6.1 Terra leads 19 (BenchLeader, 2 Nov 2026).
- On Arena WebDev, Gemini 3.6 Flash is rated 1538 and GPT-6.1 Terra 1673 (LMArena, as published by 2 Nov 2026).
Which to pick for…
The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.
| Use case | Pick | Why | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | GPT-6.1 Terra | 70 vs 57 category score; Arena WebDev 1673 vs 1538 | High |
| Agents & tool use | GPT-6.1 Terra | 69 vs 59 category score; Legal Research Bench 26.0% vs 25.0% | High |
| Maths | GPT-6.1 Terra | 73 vs 59 category score; FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 90.9% vs 59.0% | High |
| Reasoning | GPT-6.1 Terra | 70 vs 64 category score; GPQA Diamond 94.3% vs 94.1% | Medium |
| Knowledge | Gemini 3.6 Flash | 64 vs 63 category score; SimpleQA Verified 66.2% vs 57.3% | Medium |
| Long documents | GPT-6.1 Terra | 66 vs 65 category score; AA-LCR v1.1 82.7% vs 80.0% | Medium |
| Images and other media | GPT-6.1 Terra | 67 vs 65 category score; MMMU-Pro 84.7% vs 83.2% | Medium |
| Chat quality (human preference) | – | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash has an Arena rating (67 category score) | Not comparable |
| Lowest cost | Gemini 3.6 Flash (until 31 Dec 2026) | $1.50 vs $2.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.060 vs $0.080; from 1 Jan 2027: $3.00 vs $2.00 | – |
| Fastest first answer | Gemini 3.6 Flash | 16.4 s (Gemini 3.6 Flash (high)) vs 264.3 s (GPT-6.1 Terra (max)) to the first answer token | – |
| High volume on a budget | Neither flagship | A smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs | – |
Key differences
- GPT-6.1 Terra (max) leads on quality: 65.2 vs 61.3.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) is stronger in human preference, knowledge.
- GPT-6.1 Terra (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, long context, maths, multimodal, reasoning.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) is 1.3× cheaper ($1.50 vs $2.00 per 1M blended) until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00 vs $2.00 from 1 Jan 2027.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) streams 1.8× faster (197 vs 107 tokens per second).
At a glance
| Spec | Gemini 3.6 Flash | GPT-6.1 Terra |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | OpenAI | |
| Released | 21 Jul 2026 | 26 Oct 2026 |
| Context window (tokens) | 1,048,576 | 1,050,000 |
| Compared at | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | GPT-6.1 Terra (max) |
| Open weights | No | No |
| Price in / out / cached input per 1M | $0.750 / $3.75 / $0.075 | $1.00 / $5.00 / $0.050 |
| Announced price change | $1.50 / $7.50 / $0.150 from 1 Jan 2027 | None announced |
Limits, availability and announced prices from the vendors' own pages: ai.google.dev pricing (checked 20 Oct 2026). Everything else is from the day's data.
Category by category
Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.
| Category | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | GPT-6.1 Terra (max) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reasoning | 64.0 | 69.6 | GPT-6.1 Terra |
| Coding | 56.9 | 70.0 | GPT-6.1 Terra |
| Agents & tools | 59.3 | 68.6 | GPT-6.1 Terra |
| Maths | 59.4 | 72.7 | GPT-6.1 Terra |
| Knowledge | 63.8 | 62.8 | Gemini 3.6 Flash |
| Human preference | 67.4 | – | not comparable |
| Multimodal | 65.2 | 67.4 | GPT-6.1 Terra |
| Long context | 64.8 | 66.2 | GPT-6.1 Terra |
On one chart
Each domain on the index's own scale, where 50 is an average model. Click a domain to see the benchmarks behind it. Pick up to 5 models from the list.
Not drawn, measured for fewer than two of these models: Instruction following, Human preference.
Where sources disagree
Across the 21 benchmarks both have, Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 2, GPT-6.1 Terra leads 19. Every overall index that rates both puts GPT-6.1 Terra ahead.
| Overall index | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | GPT-6.1 Terra (max) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | 61.3 | 65.2 | GPT-6.1 Terra |
Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).
Price, speed and latency
List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page. Cost, tokens and time per benchmark task are measured: Artificial Analysis’ averages over its whole Intelligence Index run.
| Measure | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | GPT-6.1 Terra (max) |
|---|---|---|
| Blended price per 1M tokens, until 31 Dec 2026 | $1.50 | $2.00 |
| Input / output per 1M | $0.750 / $3.75 | $1.00 / $5.00 |
| Blended price per 1M from 1 Jan 2027 | $3.00 | $2.00 |
| Input / output per 1M from 1 Jan 2027 | $1.50 / $7.50 | $1.00 / $5.00 |
| Cached input per 1M | $0.075 | $0.050 |
| Price per task: chat reply | $0.0014 | $0.0019 |
| Price per task: summarize a 30-page report | $0.011 | $0.015 |
| Price per task: code edit | $0.010 | $0.013 |
| Price per task: agentic coding session | $0.060 | $0.080 |
| Price per task: structured extraction | $0.0023 | $0.0030 |
| Agentic coding session, input mostly cached | $0.030 | $0.037 |
| Cost per benchmark task (AA Index) | – | $0.961 |
| Output tokens per task (AA Index) | – | 60k |
| Of which reasoning | – | 39k |
| Time per task (AA Index) | – | 9 min |
| Output speed | 197 tok/s | 107 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | 16.4 s | 264.3 s |
| Time to a complete answer | 18.9 s | 269.0 s |
Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) scores 61.3 and takes 16 s to its first answer token; Gemini 3.6 Flash scores 49.5 in 1 s. GPT-6.1 Terra (max) scores 65.2 and takes 264 s to its first answer token; GPT-6.1 Terra (xhigh) scores 60.6 in 69 s, GPT-6.1 Terra (high) scores 60.3 in 21 s. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.
Every benchmark
118 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.
| Metric | Publisher | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | GPT-6.1 Terra (max) |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | BenchLeader | 61.3 | 65.2 |
| Agents & tools score | BenchLeader | 59.3 | 68.6 |
| Coding score | BenchLeader | 56.9 | 70.0 |
| Human preference score | BenchLeader | 67.4 | – |
| Knowledge score | BenchLeader | 63.8 | 62.8 |
| Long context score | BenchLeader | 64.8 | 66.2 |
| Maths score | BenchLeader | 59.4 | 72.7 |
| Multimodal score | BenchLeader | 65.2 | 67.4 |
| Reasoning score | BenchLeader | 64.0 | 69.6 |
| Blended price $/M | BenchLeader | $1.50 | $2.00 |
| Output speed | BenchLeader | 197 tok/s | 107 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | BenchLeader | 16.4 s | 264.3 s |
| Context window | BenchLeader | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,050,000 tokens |
| Reasoning | |||
| GPQA Diamond | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 94.1% | 94.3% |
| Arena Hard Prompts | Arena (LMArena) | 1501 | – |
| LiveBench 2.0 Reasoning | LiveBench | – | 88.7%† |
| LiveBench 1.0 Reasoning | LiveBench | 85.2% | – |
| GPQA Diamond (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 92.8% | – |
| Humanity's Last Exam (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 40.8% | 46.3% |
| HLE-Diamond (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 47.3% |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | Vals AI | 93.4% | – |
| ARC-AGI-1 | ARC Prize | 91.2% | – |
| ARC-AGI-2 | ARC Prize | 60.4% | – |
| CritPt | Artificial Analysis | 10.6% | 28.0% |
| CritPt v2 hard subset (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 64.5% |
| Chess Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 40.0% | – |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 30.0% | 74.0% |
| LMCA | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 44.9% | – |
| DTBench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 95.5% | – |
| ForecastBench | ForecastBench | 65.9%† | – |
| Coding | |||
| SciCode | SciCode | 53.4% | 55.1% |
| WeirdML | WeirdML | 56.1% | – |
| FrontierCode | Cognition | 34.4%† | – |
| Arena Coding | Arena (LMArena) | 1518 | – |
| Arena WebDev | Arena (LMArena) | 1538 | 1673 |
| LiveBench 2.0 Coding | LiveBench | – | 94.3%† |
| LiveBench 1.0 Coding | LiveBench | 77.9% | – |
| LiveCodeBench | Vals AI | 88.1% | – |
Show all 118 benchmarks
| Metric | Publisher | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | GPT-6.1 Terra (max) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | |||
| IOI | Vals AI | 35.1% | – |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | Vals AI | 79.6% | – |
| Code Migration | Vals AI | 30.9% | – |
| ProgramBench | Vals AI | 0.0% | – |
| Vibe Code Bench v1.1 | Vals AI | 64.0% | 84.0% |
| DeepSWE v1.1 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 46.7% | – |
| ALE-Bench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 715.5 | 2608.8 |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 7.1% | 55.6% |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 77.5% | – |
| Startrise Frontend | Startrise | – | 82.0%† |
| GameBench 2 Overall | DuelLab GameBench 2 | 52.5† | – |
| GameBench 2 by reasoning setting | DuelLab GameBench 2 | 64.6 | – |
| FrontierCode 1.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 36.0% |
| FrontierCode 2.0 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 42.3% |
| Agents & tools | |||
| APEX-Agents | Mercor | 46.9%† | 68.3% |
| Arena Agent | Arena (LMArena) | – | 10.6 |
| LiveBench Long Agentic | LiveBench | – | 48.6%† |
| LiveBench Browser | LiveBench | – | 93.1%† |
| LiveBench Agentic Coding | LiveBench | 43.4% | – |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | Vals AI | 73.8% | – |
| GDPval-AA v2.1 | Artificial Analysis | – | 1476 |
| τ³-Banking (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 29.9% | – |
| CyberBench | Vals AI | 45.4% | – |
| Finance Agent v2 | Vals AI | 56.3% | – |
| Finance Agent v2.1 | Vals AI | – | 56.0% |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1 | Vals AI | – | 1.7% |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1 | Vals AI | 3.3% | – |
| Legal Research Bench | Vals AI | 25.0% | 26.0% |
| Tax Agent Bench | Vals AI | 18.0% | 17.1% |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals) | Vals AI | – | 49.5% |
| Terminal-Bench Science | Vals AI | 4.3% | – |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Andon Labs | – | 9107.5† |
| AutomationBench | Artificial Analysis | 53.0% | 60.2% |
| GDP.pdf (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 17.4% | 28.6% |
| AA-Briefcase v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | – | 1402 |
| GDPx | GDPx by SemiAnalysis | – | 8.5% |
| Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 57.6% |
| FACTS Search | 68.2%† | – | |
| Maths | |||
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 59.0% | 90.9% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 21.9% | 92.7% |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 94.2% | 100.0% |
| ProofBench | Vals AI | 36.0%† | – |
| LiveBench Mathematics | LiveBench | 86.4% | – |
| AIME 2026 | MathArena | 96.7%† | – |
| HMMT February 2026 | MathArena | 89.4%† | – |
| MathArena Apex | MathArena | 26.0%† | – |
| Arena Maths | Arena (LMArena) | 1504 | – |
| Knowledge | |||
| SimpleQA Verified | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 66.2% | 57.3% |
| LiveBench 2.0 Data Analysis | LiveBench | – | 82.3%† |
| LiveBench Research | LiveBench | – | 73.9%† |
| LiveBench 1.0 Data Analysis | LiveBench | 63.0% | – |
| AA-Omniscience v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | – | 29.6 |
| MMLU-Pro | Vals AI | 89.3% | – |
| LegalBench | Vals AI | 86.7% | – |
| CorpFin | Vals AI | 63.3% | – |
| TaxEval | Vals AI | 74.9% | – |
| BioMysteryBench | Vals AI | 58.5% | – |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark | Vals AI | 65.4% | – |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1 | Vals AI | – | 73.3% |
| MedCode | Vals AI | 53.1% | – |
| MedScribe | Vals AI | 79.7% | – |
| Public Benefits Bench v1.1 | Vals AI | 56.6% | – |
| EBR-bench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 78.1% |
| GDP.pdf | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 14.0% | – |
| AA-Omniscience v1.1: accuracy | Artificial Analysis | – | 47.6% |
| AA-Omniscience v1.1: non-hallucination | Artificial Analysis | – | 65.5% |
| Instruction following | |||
| LiveBench Language | LiveBench | 83.9% | – |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | LiveBench | 75.4% | – |
| MultiChallenge | Scale AI SEAL | – | 74.2%† |
| Arena Instruction Following | Arena (LMArena) | 1473 | – |
| Human preference | |||
| Arena Text | Arena (LMArena) | 1483 | – |
| Arena Creative Writing | Arena (LMArena) | 1471 | – |
| Arena Multi-turn | Arena (LMArena) | 1488 | – |
| Arena Longer Queries | Arena (LMArena) | 1485 | – |
| Multimodal | |||
| Arena Vision | Arena (LMArena) | 1299 | – |
| LiveBench Design | LiveBench | – | 82.3%† |
| MMMU-Pro | Artificial Analysis | 83.2% | 84.7% |
| MMMU-Pro (Vals) | Vals AI | 88.4% | – |
| MortgageTax | Vals AI | 67.6% | – |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 31.2%† | 42.1%† |
| Long context | |||
| AA-LCR v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | 80.0% | 82.7% |
| Arena Document | Arena (LMArena) | 1453 | – |
| MLCR | Artificial Analysis | 10.0% | 30.6% |
| Composite | |||
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 154.7† | 168.1† |
| LiveBench 2.0 | LiveBench | – | 77.8%† |
| LiveBench 1.0 | LiveBench | 73.6% | – |
| AA Intelligence Index v5.0 | Artificial Analysis | – | 51.0 |
| AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2 | Artificial Analysis | 34.0 | 48.1 |
| AA Progress Index v1 | Artificial Analysis | 305.7 | 345.2 |
| Vals Index | Vals AI | – | 60.5 |
| Vals Finance Index | Vals AI | – | 53.3% |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Vals AI | 65.1% | – |
| Safety & honesty | |||
| FORTRESS | Scale AI SEAL | – | 18.2%† |
Data as of 2026-11-02. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.
DuelLab GameBench 2, release gb2-20261026-cb69502a12d9 (https://benchmarks.duellab.org/releases/gb2-20261026-cb69502a12d9/), CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Scores mapped to BenchLeader model names; not endorsed by DuelLab.
What changed
- Gemini 3.6 Flash: list price moves to $1.50 / $7.50 per 1M input / output tokens (announced).
- GPT-6.1 Terra (max): 1 score revision.
- GPT-6.1 Terra (max): BenchLeader Index 64.7 → 65.2.
- GPT-6.1 Terra (max): 1 new result (Arena Agent).
- GPT-6.1 Terra (max): 3 new results (SciCode, APEX-Agents, ALE-Bench).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): BenchLeader Index 61.8 → 61.2.
- GPT-6.1 Terra (max): BenchLeader Index 63.5 → 64.7.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): 1 new result (AA Progress Index v1).
- GPT-6.1 Terra (max): 7 new results (AA Intelligence Index v5.0, AA Progress Index v1, HLE-Diamond (AA)…); 2 score revisions; cost per task moved from $0.40/M to $0.96/M (138% up).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): 1 new result (Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1).
Related comparisons
- Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Gemini 4 Carbon
- Gemini 3.6 Flash vs GPT-6 Astra
- GPT-6.1 Terra vs Claude Opus 5.5
- GPT-6.1 Terra vs Gemini 4 Carbon
- GPT-6.1 Terra vs GPT-6 Astra
- GPT-6.1 Terra vs GPT-6.1 Sol
- Gemini 3.5 Flash vs GPT-6.1 Terra
Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for coding · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs
Gemini 3.6 Flash vs GPT-6.1 Terra: questions
- Is GPT-6.1 Terra better than Gemini 3.6 Flash?
- GPT-6.1 Terra (max) leads on quality: 65.2 vs 61.3. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; GPT-6.1 Terra (max) is ahead overall as of 2 Nov 2026, but check the category scores for your use.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash vs GPT-6.1 Terra: which is cheaper, and will that change?
- Gemini 3.6 Flash is cheaper today: $1.50 against $2.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. Gemini 3.6 Flash's current price runs until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00.
- Is Gemini 3.6 Flash or GPT-6.1 Terra better for coding?
- GPT-6.1 Terra scores higher in coding (70 vs 57 on the category index, where 50 is average). On Arena WebDev, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 1538 for Gemini 3.6 Flash against 1673 for GPT-6.1 Terra.
- Which is faster, Gemini 3.6 Flash or GPT-6.1 Terra?
- Gemini 3.6 Flash streams ~2× faster (197 vs 107 output tokens per second, Artificial Analysis 7-day median).
- Is Gemini 3.6 Flash or GPT-6.1 Terra better for agents and tool use?
- GPT-6.1 Terra scores higher in agentic tasks (69 vs 59 on the category index, where 50 is average).
More questions (4)
- Which is better for long documents?
- GPT-6.1 Terra scores higher on long-context benchmarks (66 vs 65). Both take about 1.1M tokens: Gemini 3.6 Flash 1,048,576, GPT-6.1 Terra 1,050,000.
- Which has lower latency?
- Gemini 3.6 Flash answers first: 16.4 s against 264.3 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
- Do independent benchmarks agree on Gemini 3.6 Flash vs GPT-6.1 Terra?
- Across the 21 benchmarks both have, Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 2, GPT-6.1 Terra leads 19. Every overall index that rates both puts GPT-6.1 Terra ahead.
- When was GPT-6.1 Terra released?
- GPT-6.1 Terra was released on 26 Oct 2026.