Is GPT-5 Pro better than GPT-6 Astra?

GPT-6 Astra (max) leads on quality: 70.3 vs 59.8. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; GPT-6 Astra (max) is ahead overall as of 2026-10-27, but check the category scores for your use.

Which is cheaper, GPT-5 Pro or GPT-6 Astra, and will that change?

GPT-6 Astra is cheaper today: $20.00 against $41.25 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.

Which is better for long documents?

GPT-6 Astra accepts more context: 1,050,000 against 400,000 tokens for GPT-5 Pro.

When was GPT-6 Astra released?

GPT-6 Astra was released on 2 Sept 2026.

GPT-5 Pro vs GPT-6 Astra

Full profiles: GPT-5 Pro (OpenAI) and GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated 26 Oct 2026 · Data from 12 sources

As of 27 Oct 2026, GPT-6 Astra (max) is the better pick for most workloads: it leads on quality (70.3 vs 59.8 on the BenchLeader Index) and costs 2.1× less. Pick GPT-5 Pro for multimodal (67 vs 66); pick GPT-6 Astra for reasoning (76 vs 56).

GPT-5 Pro benchmarks OpenAI

GPT-6 Astra benchmarks max OpenAI Open in the comparison tool

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
Reasoning	GPT-6 Astra	76 vs 56 category score; ARC-AGI-2 95.0% vs 18.3%	High
Knowledge	GPT-6 Astra	79 vs 66 category score	High
Images and other media	GPT-5 Pro	67 vs 66 category score	Medium
Chat quality (human preference)	–	Only GPT-6 Astra has an Arena rating (67 category score)	Not comparable
Lowest cost	GPT-6 Astra	$20.00 vs $41.25 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.800 vs $1.38	–
High volume on a budget	Neither flagship	A smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs	–

Key differences

GPT-6 Astra (max) leads on quality: 70.3 vs 59.8.
GPT-5 Pro is stronger in multimodal.
GPT-6 Astra (max) is stronger in knowledge, reasoning, agents & tools, coding, composite, human preference, long context, maths.
GPT-6 Astra (max) is 2.1× cheaper ($20.00 vs $41.25 per 1M blended).

At a glance

Spec	GPT-5 Pro	GPT-6 Astra
Developer	OpenAI	OpenAI
Released	7 Aug 2025	2 Sept 2026
Context window (tokens)	400,000	1,050,000
Compared at	GPT-5 Pro	GPT-6 Astra (max)
Open weights	No	No
Price in / out / cached input per 1M	$15.00 / $120.00 / –	$10.00 / $50.00 / $1.00

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	GPT-5 Pro	GPT-6 Astra (max)	Leader
Reasoning	56.1	76.1	GPT-6 Astra
Coding	–	73.9	not comparable
Agents & tools	–	64.2	not comparable
Maths	–	71.8	not comparable
Knowledge	65.8	79.3	GPT-6 Astra
Human preference	–	66.7	not comparable
Multimodal	67.4	65.9	GPT-5 Pro
Long context	–	65.2	not comparable
Composite	–	87.8	not comparable

Where sources disagree

Across the 2 benchmarks both have, GPT-5 Pro leads 0, GPT-6 Astra leads 2. Every overall index that rates both puts GPT-6 Astra ahead.

Overall index	GPT-5 Pro	GPT-6 Astra (max)	Leader
BenchLeader Index	59.8	70.3	GPT-6 Astra

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; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.

Measure	GPT-5 Pro	GPT-6 Astra (max)
Blended price per 1M tokens	$41.25	$20.00
Input / output per 1M	$15.00 / $120.00	$10.00 / $50.00
Cached input per 1M	–	$1.00
Price per task: chat reply	$0.042	$0.019
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report	$0.252	$0.150
Price per task: code edit	$0.270	$0.135
Price per task: agentic coding session	$1.38	$0.800
Price per task: structured extraction	$0.054	$0.030
Cost to run a full benchmark suite	–	$3.26
Output speed	–	68 tok/s
Time to first answer	–	353.2 s
Time to a complete answer	–	360.5 s

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. GPT-5 Pro scores 59.8. GPT-6 Astra (max) scores 70.3 and takes 353 s to its first answer token; GPT-6 Astra (high) scores 69.5 in 62 s, GPT-6 Astra (xhigh) scores 68.8 in 175 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

138 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	GPT-5 Pro	GPT-6 Astra (max)
BenchLeader Index	BenchLeader	59.8	70.3
Knowledge score	BenchLeader	65.8	79.3
Multimodal score	BenchLeader	67.4	65.9
Reasoning score	BenchLeader	56.1	76.1
Agents & tools score	BenchLeader	–	64.2
Coding score	BenchLeader	–	73.9
Composite score	BenchLeader	–	87.8
Human preference score	BenchLeader	–	66.7
Long context score	BenchLeader	–	65.2
Maths score	BenchLeader	–	71.8
Blended price $/M	BenchLeader	$41.25	$20.00
Output speed	BenchLeader	–	68 tok/s
Time to first answer	BenchLeader	–	353.2 s
Context window	BenchLeader	400,000 tokens	1,050,000 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	95.8%
Humanity's Last Exam	Scale AI / CAIS	31.6%	54.8%†
SimpleBench	SimpleBench	61.6%	–
Arena Hard Prompts	Arena (LMArena)	–	1501
LiveBench 2.0 Reasoning	LiveBench	–	92.7%†
LiveBench 1.0 Reasoning	LiveBench	–	92.7%
GPQA Diamond (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	96.1%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	54.7%
Kagi LLM Benchmark	Kagi LLM Benchmark	76.8%	–
ARC-AGI-1	ARC Prize	70.2%	97.5%
ARC-AGI-2	ARC Prize	18.3%	95.0%
ARC-AGI-3	ARC Prize	–	98.6%
CritPt	Artificial Analysis	–	31.7%
MysteryMechanism	Vals AI	–	53.1%
Chess Puzzles	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	48.0%†	74.0%
Mystery Game Puzzles	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	84.0%
LMCA	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	64.1%†
DTBench	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	97.1%†
BTF-3	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	13.5%†
Coding
SciCode	SciCode	–	56.5%
WeirdML	WeirdML	60.4%†	93.3%
FrontierCode	Cognition	–	53.3%
GSO-Bench	GSO-Bench	–	79.4%†
Arena Coding	Arena (LMArena)	–	1543
Arena WebDev	Arena (LMArena)	–	1774

Show all 138 benchmarks

Metric	Publisher	GPT-5 Pro	GPT-6 Astra (max)
Coding
LiveBench 2.0 Coding	LiveBench	–	93.7%†
LiveBench 1.0 Coding	LiveBench	–	80.4%
IOI	Vals AI	–	100.0%
Code Migration	Vals AI	–	67.7%
Code Migration v1.1	Vals AI	–	80.6%
ProgramBench	Vals AI	–	5.5%
SWE-bench Multimodal	Vals AI	–	43.3%
Vibe Code Bench 1-100	Vals AI	–	27.6%
Vibe Code Bench v1.1	Vals AI	–	89.6%
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnA	Scale AI SEAL	–	59.1%†
SWE Atlas: Refactoring	Scale AI SEAL	–	59.0%†
SWE Atlas: Test Writing	Scale AI SEAL	–	50.7%†
MirrorCode	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	46.7%†
DeepSWE v1.1	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	73.2%
ALE-Bench	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	2951.3
AlgoTune	AlgoTune	1.3†	–
FrontierSWE	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	65.5%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	59.1%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	88.4%
Startrise Frontend	Startrise	–	79.9%†
FrontierCode 1.1 (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	47.0%
Agents & tools
Terminal-Bench	Terminal-Bench	–	58.2%
Remote Labor Index	Scale AI / CAIS	–	20.8%†
APEX-Agents	Mercor	–	64.7%†
Arena Agent	Arena (LMArena)	–	14
LiveBench Long Agentic	LiveBench	–	77.5%†
LiveBench Browser	LiveBench	–	91.3%†
LiveBench Agentic Coding	LiveBench	–	57.3%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)	Vals AI	–	87.3%
HiL-Bench	Scale AI SEAL	–	65.3%†
GDPval-AA v2.1	Artificial Analysis	–	53.7%
τ³-Banking (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	41.4%
ITBench SRE (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	48.6%
Analyst Agent (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	51.3%
CUA-bench	Vals AI	–	19.2%
CyberBench	Vals AI	–	41.1%
Finance Agent v2	Vals AI	–	53.5%
Finance Agent v2.1	Vals AI	–	60.4%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1	Vals AI	–	7.1%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1	Vals AI	–	5.4%
Legal Research Bench	Vals AI	–	39.4%
Robo-bench	Vals AI	–	23.3%
SREBench	Vals AI	–	56.9%
Tax Agent Bench	Vals AI	–	20.7%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)	Vals AI	–	59.6%
Terminal-Bench Science	Vals AI	–	62.9%
Time Horizon Index: KSP	Vals AI	–	90.5%
Arena Search	Arena (LMArena)	–	1246
BALROG	BALROG	–	68.3%
Vending-Bench 2	Andon Labs	–	15514.7†
AutomationBench	Artificial Analysis	–	68.5%
GDP.pdf (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	31.0%
Harvey LAB-AA v1.1	Harvey	–	8.6%
AA-Briefcase v1.1	Artificial Analysis	–	1568
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	63.3%
CWE-Bench (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	63.3%
DeepSec-Bench (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	36.9%
CyberGym end-to-end (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	0.0%
DeepSearchQA	Google	65.2%	–
FACTS Search	Google	–	89.9%†
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	55.8%†	93.7%
FrontierMath Tier 4	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	19.5%†	97.6%
OTIS Mock AIME	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	100.0%
ProofBench	Vals AI	–	99.0%†
LiveBench Mathematics	LiveBench	–	96.8%
Arena Maths	Arena (LMArena)	–	1487
Knowledge
SimpleQA Verified	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	75.6%
LiveBench 2.0 Data Analysis	LiveBench	–	83.0%†
LiveBench Research	LiveBench	–	85.2%†
LiveBench 1.0 Data Analysis	LiveBench	–	83.0%
AA-Omniscience	Artificial Analysis	–	43.4
PRBench Finance	Scale AI SEAL	51.1%	47.5%†
PRBench Legal	Scale AI SEAL	49.9%	48.4%†
MultiNRC	Scale AI SEAL	65.2%	–
BioMysteryBench	Vals AI	–	79.3%
Excel Modeling Benchmark	Vals AI	–	71.7%
Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1	Vals AI	–	72.7%
MedCode	Vals AI	–	48.5%
MedScribe	Vals AI	–	87.9%
DrugDiscoveryBench	Scale AI SEAL	–	68.7%
EBR-bench	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	76.2%
GDP.pdf	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	34.2%
AA-Omniscience: accuracy	Artificial Analysis	–	62.6%
AA-Omniscience: non-hallucination	Artificial Analysis	–	48.7%
Instruction following
LiveBench Language	LiveBench	–	89.4%
LiveBench Instruction Following	LiveBench	–	75.6%
Arena Instruction Following	Arena (LMArena)	–	1473
Human preference
Arena Text	Arena (LMArena)	–	1477
Arena Creative Writing	Arena (LMArena)	–	1450
Arena Multi-turn	Arena (LMArena)	–	1485
Arena Longer Queries	Arena (LMArena)	–	1489
Multimodal
Arena Vision	Arena (LMArena)	–	1280
LiveBench Design	LiveBench	–	82.0%†
MMMU-Pro	Artificial Analysis	–	86.9%
VISTA	Scale AI SEAL	52.4%	–
SAGE	Vals AI	–	46.4%
Blueprint-Bench 2	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	49.7%†
AA-3D	Artificial Analysis	–	1164
Long context
AA-LCR	Artificial Analysis	–	80.7%
Arena Document	Arena (LMArena)	–	1473
MLCR	Artificial Analysis	–	41.7%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities Index	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	150.6	168.8†
LiveBench 2.0	LiveBench	–	85.6%†
LiveBench 1.0	LiveBench	–	82.2%
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2	Artificial Analysis	–	52.7
Vals Index	Vals AI	–	65.0
Vals Finance Index	Vals AI	–	55.6%
Vals RSI Index	Vals AI	–	27.1%
Vals Science Index	Vals AI	–	65.1%
Vals Router Index	Vals AI	–	65.0%†
AA Cyber Index	Artificial Analysis	–	33.4
Safety & honesty
FORTRESS	Scale AI SEAL	15.2%	–
MASK	Scale AI SEAL	86.0%	–

Data as of 2026-10-27. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

What changed

25 Oct 2026 GPT-6 Astra (max): 1 score revision.
23 Oct 2026 GPT-6 Astra (max): 9 new results (Code Migration v1.1, Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1, Finance Agent v2.1…).
21 Oct 2026 GPT-6 Astra (max): 1 score revision.
20 Oct 2026 GPT-6 Astra (max): 4 score revisions.
19 Oct 2026 GPT-6 Astra (max): BenchLeader Index 69.8 → 70.6.
16 Oct 2026 GPT-6 Astra (max): 1 score revision.
15 Oct 2026 GPT-6 Astra (max): 1 new result (Arena Search); 3 score revisions.
14 Oct 2026 GPT-6 Astra (max): BenchLeader Index 70.3 → 69.8.
14 Oct 2026 GPT-5 Pro: 1 new result (PRBench Legal).
14 Oct 2026 GPT-6 Astra (max): 1 score revision.

Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for coding · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs