Comparison
Gemini vs GPT-5: Google's flagship against OpenAI's
Gemini's very long context and multimodal input against GPT-5's ecosystem and pricing.
Editorial updated 21 Sept 2026
Source: OpenRouter (live)
Google's Gemini line is the most aggressive on context length and multimodal input, and often on price. OpenAI's GPT-5 is the default in most developer tooling. If you are building on either company's wider platform (Workspace and Vertex on one side, the OpenAI ecosystem on the other) that integration usually decides it.
Where the choice is open, look at the context and modality rows. Gemini regularly declares a context window several times larger than GPT-5's, which changes how you architect retrieval: fewer chunks, more raw documents in the prompt. GPT-5 tends to be the stronger fit for tool-heavy agents and strict structured output.
Both prices below are live. Gemini's pricing frequently changes at version boundaries, so revisit this page rather than relying on a figure you saw last quarter.
Live figures
The numbers
Best value in each row is highlighted. “Not declared” means the provider does not advertise the feature on its listing.
| Attribute | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input priceUSD per 1M tokens | $2.00 | $0.20 (best) |
| Output priceUSD per 1M tokens | $12.00 | $1.20 (best) |
| Blended price75% in / 25% out | $4.50 | $0.45 (best) |
| Vs. market median | 5.6× dearer | 44% cheaper |
| Value rankcheapest = 1 | #358 | #143 (best) |
| Context windowtokens | 1.0M | 1.1M (best) |
| Max outputtokens | 66K | 128K (best) |
| Input modalities | audio, file, image, text, video | file, image, text |
| Output modalities | text | text |
| Tool calling | Declared | Declared |
| Reasoning | Declared | Declared |
| Structured output | Declared | Declared |
| Listed on OpenRouter | 2026-02-19 | 2026-07-09 (best) |
Blended price assumes a 3:1 input-to-output token mix. Median is across all 417 priced models.
Add or swap modelsRead-out
What the numbers say
- OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna Pro is the cheapest here at $0.45/M blended — 10× less than Google: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview.
- OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna Pro offers the largest context window (1.1M tokens) versus 1.0M for Google: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview.
Our view
Which should you choose?
- Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview
- Choose Gemini for very large contexts, native multimodal input and Google Cloud or Workspace integration.
- GPT-5.6 Luna Pro
- Choose GPT-5 for the deepest tooling and library support and the most predictable structured output.
Models
Model pages
Full pricing history, capabilities and alternatives for each model in this comparison.
$4.50
/M blended
OpenAI
$0.450
/M blended
More comparisons
Other head-to-heads
- Claude vs GPT-5: which frontier model should you pay for?
Anthropic's flagship Claude against OpenAI's GPT-5 line on price, context and declared capabilities, with live figures.
- Claude Sonnet vs GPT-5 Mini: the mid-tier workhorses
The two models most production apps actually run. How the price gap compares to the capability gap.
- Claude vs Gemini: Anthropic's flagship against Google's
Two very different philosophies: Claude's careful, consistent output versus Gemini's scale and context.
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