OpenAI Puts GPT-6.1 Sol on Ultrafast at $12/$60 per Million Tokens, Selling Up to 8x Speed Across the API, Codex and ChatGPT Work
OpenAI said on Oct. 8 that Ultrafast, its fastest service tier, is rolling out for GPT-6.1 Sol in the API, Codex and ChatGPT Work, at up to 8x the speed of Sol Standard. API pricing is $12 per million input tokens and $60 per million output tokens, which OpenAI calls 1.2x the cost of Astra. The API tier is open to all API users with separate rate limits; in Codex and ChatGPT Work it is limited to Pro 500, eligible usage-based Enterprise and credit-based Edu plans. The speed figure is OpenAI's own.
OpenAI is now selling speed on Sol as a priced tier rather than a preview. On October 8, it said Ultrafast is rolling out for GPT-6.1 Sol in the API, Codex and ChatGPT Work, running at up to 8x the speed of Sol Standard. In August, Ultrafast was a limited customer preview on GPT-5.6 Sol; the API guide now says Ultrafast for GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol "is available to all API users."
What OpenAI announced
| GPT-6.1 Sol, Ultrafast | |
|---|---|
| Speed | Up to 8x faster than Sol Standard (OpenAI) |
| API price | $12 per million input tokens, $60 per million output tokens |
| OpenAI's comparison | "just 1.2x the cost of Astra" |
| API access | All API users; separate rate limits from Standard and Fast |
| Codex and ChatGPT Work | Pro 500, eligible usage-based Enterprise, credit-based Edu; Enterprise admins must enable it |
| Data residency | US and EU, plus global processing |
OpenAI pitches the tier at "debugging an outage, agents navigating apps, and live experiences where every second counts," and describes it as "near-Astra intelligence." Its API guide recommends WebSockets for agentic workloads, since network overhead on separate requests can eat into the latency gains.
Rate limits
Default Ultrafast token limits, per OpenAI's API guide:
| API usage tier | GPT-6.1 Sol (TPM) | GPT-6 Astra (TPM) |
|---|---|---|
| Build | 1,000,000 | 500,000 |
| Launch | 4,000,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Grow | 40,000,000 | 5,000,000 |
GPT-6 Astra Ultrafast supports US data residency and global processing only. With the same post, OpenAI added EU data residency for GPT-6.1 Sol Fast and GPT-6 Luna Fast.
Claims and checks
The up-to-8x figure and "near-Astra intelligence" are OpenAI's descriptions; OpenAI gives no tokens-per-second figure or benchmark for this tier in the announcement, and we have no independent speed measurement. Ultrafast is a service tier for an existing model, not a new checkpoint, so it does not change any model's leaderboard position. The "1.2x the cost of Astra" comparison is OpenAI's wording; the announcement does not say which Astra pricing tier it compares against.
Limits
- Details come from OpenAI's post in the Announcements section of its developer forum and from its API guide; pricing for cached input and cache writes, which the guide links to a separate pricing table, is not covered here.
- Speed and quality claims are OpenAI's and unverified.