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OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) vs OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free)

Week of · usage ranks & prices refresh weekly

Based on weekly OpenRouter usage tracked by AI Tier List, OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) ranks #3 overall — ahead of OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free) at #49. OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free) is cheaper on input tokens at Free/1M vs $0.10/1M for OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch). OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) offers the larger context window at 1.1M tokens.

OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) vs OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free): which should you use?

Choose OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) if…

  • It sees more real traffic — #3 overall on OpenRouter's weekly ranking, against #49 for OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free).
  • Bigger context window — 1.1M vs 131K tokens.
  • It accepts file, image input, which OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free) does not.
  • It is the newer model — released Jul 2026 against Aug 2025.

Choose OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free) if…

  • Cheaper to read — Free vs $0.10 per 1M input tokens, which is what dominates long-prompt and RAG workloads.
  • Cheaper to write — Free vs $0.60 per 1M output tokens, the line item that decides generation-heavy costs.

Spec Comparison

OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) vs OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free): price, context window, modalities and benchmark specs
SpecOpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch)OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free)
Authoropenaiopenai
Input price (per 1M tokens)$0.10Free
Output price (per 1M tokens)$0.60Free
Context window1.1M131K
Input modalitiesfile, image, texttext
Output modalitiestexttext
AA Intelligence—15.2
AA Coding—20.7
AA Agentic—3.1
ReleasedJul 2026Aug 2025

What OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) and OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free) actually cost to run

On a read-heavy job — 1M tokens in, 100K out — OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) costs $0.16 and OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free) costs $0.00.

Flip the shape — 100K in, 1M out — and it becomes $0.61 for OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) versus $0.00 for OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free).

Both figures are the published per-token rates multiplied out; caching and batch discounts are not included.

Usage Rank by Task

OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) vs OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free): weekly OpenRouter usage rank by task
TaskOpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch)OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free)
Overall#3#49
Multi-step Planning#6—
Tool Dispatch#4—
Web Search#9—
Agent Workflows#7—
Classification & Tagging#3—
Debugging#7—
DevOps Config#6—
File Read/Write#6—
Frontend UI#5—
Code Implementation#5—
Repo Analysis#5—
Code Review & Security#5—
SQL & Database#5—
Content Writing#8—

About OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) and OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free)

OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch)

Built by openai · released Jul 2026 · 1.1M-token context

GPT-5.6 Luna is a fast, cost-efficient model in OpenAI's GPT-5.6 series. It is suited for high-volume, latency-sensitive tasks such as chat, classification, and lightweight agentic workflows, providing capable reasoning for...

OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free)

Built by openai · released Aug 2025 · 131K-token context

gpt-oss-20b is an open-weight 21B parameter model released by OpenAI under the Apache 2.0 license. It uses a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture with 3.6B active parameters per forward pass, optimized for...

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FAQ

Which is better, OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) or OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free)?

Based on weekly OpenRouter usage tracked by AI Tier List, OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) ranks #3 overall — ahead of OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free) at #49. OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free) is cheaper on input tokens at Free/1M vs $0.10/1M for OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch). OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) offers the larger context window at 1.1M tokens.

Which is cheaper, OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) or OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free)?

OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free) is cheaper at Free per 1M input tokens. Output pricing: OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) $0.60, OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free) Free.

Is OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) still ahead of OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free) right now?

Yes. For the week of 2026-08-10, OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) ranks #3 overall on OpenRouter usage against #49 for OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free). Ranks refresh weekly, and the verdict on this page flips if they cross.

Usage ranks are weekly data aggregated by OpenRouter. Prices are USD per 1M tokens.