GPT-5.5 (Medium) vs GPT-5.6 Terra (Max)
Which is better for the money: GPT-5.5 (Medium) by OpenAI or GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) scores 8.3 points higher (42.1 vs 33.8) but costs 1.2× as much to run the benchmark ($2501 vs $2095; both flagship class). Pick GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise GPT-5.5 (Medium).
| Metric | GPT-5.5 (Medium) | GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 33.8 | 42.1 | +24.6% GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is 24.6% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,095.12 | $2,500.72 | +19.4% GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is 19.4% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.73s | 104.98s | +978.9% GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is 978.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $30.0 | $2.00 / $12.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) vs GPT-5.5 (Medium): 24.6% more intelligence, 19.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 978.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-5.5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
GPT-5.5 (Medium)GPT-5.6 Terra (Max)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-5-medium/gpt-5-6-terra · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-5-medium/gpt-5-6-terra?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill