GPT Image 2.6 Pricing: Sunburst & Flare, $0.02–$0.21 per Image

GPT Image 2.6 Sunburst and Flare cost exactly the same. OpenAI bills gpt-image-2.6-sunburst and gpt-image-2.6-flare per token, at $5 per 1M text input tokens, $8 per 1M image input tokens and $30 per 1M image output tokens, the same rates as GPT Image 2.5 (OpenAI API pricing, as of November 5, 2026). With the token counts measured the day after launch, a 1024×1024 image comes to about $0.025 at low, $0.043 at medium, $0.053 at high, $0.094 at xhigh and $0.21 at max. A landscape 1536×1024 image at low is the cheapest common case at about $0.020, and 2.6 has no half-price Batch rate yet.

The choice that moves your bill most is how you pay. Token billing, whether direct from OpenAI or through LaoZhang API's official forwarding at the same rates, wins only at low: $0.03 buys 1,000 output tokens, and a low 1024 image uses 824. From medium up, a flat $0.03 per call costs less. LaoZhang's gpt-image-2.6-flare-vip and gpt-image-2.6-sunburst-vip charge that for any size up to native 4K at qualities through high, and gpt-image-2.6-web charges it per GIF at 1024×1024. For token-billed requests, pass each response's usage object to the cost function further down; it reproduces the amounts actually billed.

Disclosure: laozhang.ai is our own service. Its prices are platform pricing, not an independent comparison.

Three needs keep you on token billing regardless of the break-even: xhigh or max on 2.6, SVG output, and GIFs smaller than 816×816, such as 512×512. ChatGPT users don't pay per image at all, because Images 2.6 comes with every ChatGPT plan and the cost is the subscription.

GPT Image 2.6 cost per image by quality and size

Cost per image is output tokens × $30 per million, plus prompt text that adds less than $0.001. The token counts below were measured by the LaoZhang API documentation team on November 5, 2026 with direct calls to OpenAI's API, one prompt and one run per cell. Flare's and Sunburst's counts matched or differed by a few dozen tokens at most (1,353 against 1,372 at 1536×1024 high), which is under $0.001 per image.

Disclosure: laozhang.ai is our own service. Its prices are platform pricing, not an independent comparison.

These costs were recomputed on November 5, 2026 with cost = (text input tokens × $5 + image input tokens × $8 + output tokens × $30) ÷ 1,000,000, and the formula was checked against what the LaoZhang gateway actually billed for the same test requests. A low 1024 image with 15 prompt tokens and 824 output tokens works out to $0.02480 and was billed $0.02480; a 4-frame 512×512 GIF at low (36 and 1,172 tokens) works out to $0.03534 and was billed $0.03534. Landscape images used fewer tokens than square ones at every quality measured. Portrait 1024×1536 was not measured, so don't assume it matches landscape.

Is Sunburst more expensive than Flare? Same price, different wait

No. At the same size and quality, gpt-image-2.6-sunburst and gpt-image-2.6-flare are billed at the same rates and use the same output tokens give or take a few dozen, under $0.001 per image, so a Sunburst image costs what a Flare image costs. The difference is time: in the November 5 tests, Flare returned a 1024×1024 image in 8 seconds at low and 12 at high, Sunburst in 34 and 59, and at max the gap was 39 seconds against 157. These are single runs, and queueing can shift them.

Which model suits which job, and whether to move from 2.5 at all, is covered in GPT Image 2.6 vs 2.5: Same Price at High, 4× the Cost at Low. The short version on price: from high up the two generations cost the same, while at low 2.6 uses 4.2× the tokens of 2.5 and at medium 3.3×.

How edits, GIFs and SVGs change the GPT Image 2.6 bill

Each request type beyond plain text-to-image adds its own billed part. A GIF is one image sheet that holds every frame, so it's billed as the output tokens of that sheet rather than per frame. An SVG starts as an ordinary reference image, and then a text model writes the vector code at its own rate.

GIFs have a size limit of their own. All frames share one sheet, so a small size with many frames fails with "No supported sheet fits…", and GIF output can't be streamed; 512×512 with 4–9 frames works. SVG is priced for icons and simple graphics. In the documentation team's tests, complex full scenes mostly ended in an OpenAI 502 error, so don't plan a budget around SVG illustrations.

Token billing or $0.03 per call: the break-even is 1,000 tokens

Pay per token when your images stay at low, and pay $0.03 per call from medium up. At $30 per 1M output tokens, $0.03 buys exactly 1,000 tokens. A low 1024 image needs 824 and a medium one 1,449, so for 1,000 square images a month you'd pay $24.72 on tokens against $30 flat at low, and $52.68 against $30 at high. A 4K high image is about $0.10 on tokens against the same $0.03, and an edit with one reference image crosses the line even at low.

"VIP" and "web" are LaoZhang API's names for its two flat-priced 2.6 options, both called with a default-group key. Official forwarding sends your request to OpenAI's own models and bills OpenAI's token rates (LaoZhang's GPT Image 2.6 announcement, as of November 5, 2026).

Disclosure: laozhang.ai is our own service. Its prices are platform pricing, not an independent comparison.

On November 5, 2026, a default-group LaoZhang key ran the flat-priced options. gpt-image-2.6-web with output_format: "gif", size: "1024x1024", frame_count: 6 and frame_duration_ms: 150 returned a 1.4 MB GIF with exactly 6 frames in 41.4 seconds, while the same request at 512×512 came back as HTTP 400 with "param":"size". On the VIP models, Sunburst at 1024×1024 returned PNGs at low (47.3 s) and high (65.8 s), Flare returned a 3840×2160 PNG at high in 32.3 s and a 1536×1024 PNG at low in 72.2 s, and quality: "xhigh" was refused with a 400 in 1.1 seconds. All four images are charged at the same $0.03 list price.

Two trade-offs come with the flat price. It's slower than Flare direct, which finishes a 1024 image in 8–12 seconds. And it stops at high on 2.6: if you need xhigh or max for $0.03, only the 2.5 VIP models (gpt-image-2.5-flare-vip, gpt-image-2.5-sunburst-vip) offer it, and that's the older model. On LaoZhang's official forwarding, a request that comes back non-200, including parameter errors and moderation blocks, isn't charged.

What makes a GPT Image 2.6 bill bigger than you planned

Most budget surprises with 2.6 come from settings you didn't send, not from the rates themselves.

• Leaving out quality lets Flare pick a level from the prompt. In the November 5 tests, a detailed prompt used about 5,795 output tokens three times in a row, roughly $0.17 per 1024 image, and Sunburst without quality defaults to high.
• Batch isn't available. OpenAI's model pages list Batch as "Not supported" for both 2.6 models (gpt-image-2.6-flare model page, as of November 5, 2026), and the Batch price table has no 2.6 rows, while 2.5 at high through Batch costs about $0.026 per 1024 image.
• Cached-input rates are listed for 2.6, but OpenAI's footnote applies them only to GPT Image 2 and 2.5 images made with the Responses API, so don't count on cache savings.
• LaoZhang's OpenAI Official Enterprise group adds 20% to every token, which puts a high 1024 image at $0.063.
• Every image you discard costs as much as one you keep. If you throw away one in three, budget 1.5× the per-image figure.

The complexity parameter isn't one of these. It changes how busy the scene is, and token use stays the same at a given quality.

Why some pages show $4 or $8 per 1M tokens for GPT Image 2.6

Those numbers aren't OpenAI's prices for 2.6. A "starting price of $4 per 1M input tokens" is a reseller's own rate, and "$8 per 1M input and $8 per 1M output" is a shortened search snippet: the page behind it shows $8 for image input and $30 for image output, matching OpenAI. A rate such as $33 per 1M image output is also a reseller's own price, and pages saying the 2.6 price is unpublished were written before the November 4, 2026 launch. Headlines that call 2.6 "4× the cost" of 2.5 are true only at low. OpenAI's own rate card for both models is $5 text input, $8 image input and $30 image output per 1M tokens.

Compute the cost of a GPT Image 2.6 response from its usage object

Every Image API response carries a usage object with input_tokens_details.text_tokens, input_tokens_details.image_tokens and output_tokens (OpenAI image generation API reference). This function turns them into dollars at OpenAI's rates and was run on November 5, 2026 against requests whose billed amounts were known.

# Cost of one GPT Image 2.6 response from its `usage` object (OpenAI rates, Nov 2026).
RATES = {"text_in": 5.00, "image_in": 8.00, "image_out": 30.00}  # USD per 1M tokens

def image_cost_usd(usage: dict, enterprise_markup: float = 1.0) -> float:
    inp = usage.get("input_tokens_details") or {}
    text_in = inp.get("text_tokens", usage.get("input_tokens", 0))
    image_in = inp.get("image_tokens", 0)
    out = usage.get("output_tokens", 0)
    usd = (text_in * RATES["text_in"] + image_in * RATES["image_in"] + out * RATES["image_out"]) / 1_000_000
    return round(usd * enterprise_markup, 5)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    samples = {  # token counts from the Nov 5 test requests whose billed amounts are known
        "low 1024 generate (billed $0.02480)": {"input_tokens": 15, "input_tokens_details": {"text_tokens": 15, "image_tokens": 0}, "output_tokens": 824},
        "GIF 512 low 4 frames (billed $0.03534)": {"input_tokens": 36, "input_tokens_details": {"text_tokens": 36, "image_tokens": 0}, "output_tokens": 1172},
        "high 1024, Enterprise +20%": {"input_tokens": 15, "input_tokens_details": {"text_tokens": 15, "image_tokens": 0}, "output_tokens": 1756},
    }
    for name, u in samples.items():
        m = 1.2 if "Enterprise" in name else 1.0
        print(f"{name}: ${image_cost_usd(u, m):.5f}")

low 1024 generate (billed $0.02480): $0.02480
GIF 512 low 4 frames (billed $0.03534): $0.03534
high 1024, Enterprise +20%: $0.06331

Log the result next to each request and you have a per-image cost history to set a monthly budget from. Use it only for token-billed requests; on the VIP and web models the price is a flat $0.03, and their usage numbers aren't the bill.

GPT Image 2.6 pricing: other questions

How much does GPT Image 2.6 cost in ChatGPT?

There's no per-image price in ChatGPT. OpenAI's Images 2.6 announcement of November 4, 2026 puts it in ChatGPT and Codex on every subscription tier, so what you pay is your plan, and OpenAI publishes no per-plan image or GIF counts. For making GIFs inside ChatGPT, see How to Make a GIF in ChatGPT (Images 2.6): Frames, Speed, Edits.

Is there a free GPT Image 2.6 API?

No. As of November 5, 2026, OpenAI's pricing page lists only paid token rates for gpt-image-2.6-flare and gpt-image-2.6-sunburst, with no free tier for either model.

How much does GPT Image 2 cost?

GPT Image 2 has the same token rates as 2.6 on OpenAI's pricing page, and unlike 2.6 it still has a half-price Batch option, $15 per 1M image output tokens, as of November 5, 2026. Its per-image costs are in GPT Image 2 API Pricing: Cost per Image, Batch, and $0.03 Calls, and 2.5's are in GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst Pricing: Official Costs vs $0.03 per Call.