OpenAI cut the price of its latest GPT-6 Sol and Luna models by 50 percent on September 22. The company made this aggressive move in the ongoing artificial intelligence price war to drive enterprise adoption. The vendor is reacting to U.S. rivals Google and Anthropic, alongside the growing popularity of open source models.
The AI lab introduced its two latest models after training them similarly to GPT-6 Astra, which launched earlier in the month. OpenAI stated that GPT-6 Sol can tackle difficult work tasks while allowing users to iterate with higher usage limits and lower costs. The company noted that the model compares to Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5.1 for coding at a much lower price.
This targeted focus on pricing highlights how vendors continue competing on model costs as enterprises constantly assess their artificial intelligence spending. Bradley Shimmin, an analyst at Futurum Group, explained that companies remain hyper-focused on model economics. Frontier model hosting providers face scare tactics from open source and smaller models.
OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google spent the last few months reducing model prices because Chinese open source vendors provide comparable performance to frontier models. GPT-6 Sol and Luna demonstrate how aggressively OpenAI is willing to compete. The price of GPT-6 Sol is $2 per million input and $10 per million output tokens, making it 50 percent cheaper than GPT-5.6 Sol.
GPT-6 Luna is also half the price of GPT-5.6 Luna at $0.10 per million input and $0.50 per million output tokens. By comparison, Claude Fable 5.1 costs $10 per million input and $50 per million output tokens. Google also offered promotional pricing on its Gemini 3.8 Flash model until December, with input costing $0.75 and output costing $3.75.
Shimmin noted that these companies compete with more than just each other. He stated that downward pressure from smaller models and the open source movement is real and persistent. Optimization will continue as the main differentiator rather than just price.
Lian Jye Su, an analyst at Omdia, said that reduced pricing helps OpenAI compete on cost while pushing toward an initial public offering. The model maker entered its initial filing in June, though the official public launch date remains unclear. Su explained that heavy pricing focus demonstrates OpenAI's intent to accelerate adoption of GPT-6 Sol and Luna as fast as possible.
Su added that these smaller versions of GPT-6 Astra provide sufficient performance to drive artificial intelligence usage. However, Shimmin warned that price cuts are probably unsustainable. He noted that with vendors releasing new models almost every other week, price benefits appear minimal.
Nevertheless, Shimmin stated that the price war breeds advancement and innovation. He explained that this battle among giant closed model makers emphasizes enterprise needs, particularly solving affordability problems. Shimmin added that these models make OpenAI look pragmatic rather than focused solely on capturing investor confidence.
