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Model comparison

Amazon Nova 2 Lite vs GPT-5.6 Terra

Amazon against OpenAI, compared on context, price, and attributed benchmark results.

Recorded profile verification October 2, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: Medium — see receipts below

Amazon

Amazon Nova 2 Lite

Balanced

vs

OpenAI

GPT-5.6 Terra

Balanced

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationAmazon Nova 2 LiteGPT-5.6 Terra
ProviderAmazonOpenAI
TierBalancedBalanced
Context window1MWinner: 1.05M
Max outputNot verifiedUnverified128K
Input / 1M tokensWinner: $0.30$2
Output / 1M tokensWinner: $2.50$12
WeightsClosedClosed
ParametersNot verifiedUnverifiedNot verifiedUnverified
Reasoning levelslow, medium, highnone, low, medium, high, xhigh, max
Modalitiestext, image, videotext, image
API model idamazon.nova-2-lite-v1:0gpt-5.6-terra
ReleasedDecember 2, 2025July 9, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] · source date GPT-5.6 Terra: 2026-10-01Not verifiedUnverified42
Terminal-Bench 2.1 · source date GPT-5.6 Terra: 2026-07-09Not verifiedUnverified87.4
LiveBench · source date GPT-5.6 Terra: 2026-09-05Not verifiedUnverified77.9

Dates beside benchmark scores refer to the linked source’s publication or capture date unless that source explicitly states when it measured the result. A shared URL alone does not establish comparable runs; unverified setups are marked. Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

  • Source date2026-10-01
    Artificial Analysis (GPT-5.6 Terra (max))

    Composite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score.

    Comparable with caveatOnly same-version scores are comparable. v4.3.2 was rebaselined (the top score fell from 66 on v4.1.1 to ~58), so v4.1.1 figures must not be compared with v4.3.2 figures — check the cited source and its date.

  • Source date2026-09-05
    LiveBench official leaderboard (benchmark-owned), max effort

    Contamination-resistant general capability across reasoning, coding, math, data analysis, and language, with monthly question refreshes.

    Comparable with caveatCompare only observations confirmed to use the same exact question-set version. Date proximity (including within one month) does not establish identical questions; when the version is unavailable, treat the scores as unaligned.

  • Source date2026-07-09
    OpenAI GPT-5.6 launch table (vendor-reported; effort and experiment date unspecified) (Vendor launch table; complete common run settings unverified)

    Agentic terminal work: multi-step tasks executed in a sandboxed shell environment.

    Comparable with caveatNot comparable with Terminal-Bench 3.0 or 4.0 (different task sets) or v1; harness configuration (container, time limits) also shifts results.

Pricing tiers

Amazon Nova 2 Lite: Bedrock Global Standard $0.30/$2.50 per MTok, cached input $0.075 and cache writes $0. Single-region $0.33/$2.75, cached $0.0825. Global Flex/Batch $0.15/$1.25; Global Priority $0.525/$4.375, cached $0.13125. Grounding costs $0.03 per request separately. Snapshot: September 30, 2026 native offer file; regional routes, service tiers and customization have separate meters.

GPT-5.6 Terra: Launch $2.50/$15, reduced to $2/$12 on July 30. Above 272K input the full request bills $4/$18. Cached input $0.20; cache writes $2.50 at short context. Batch $1/$6 at short context. Regional/FedRAMP processing adds 10% where eligible.

BalancedRecord checked October 2, 2026

Amazon Nova 2 Lite

Amazon’s hosted Nova 2 Lite reasoning model for everyday business workflows, with a 1M-token context window.

Best for

  • Document processing
  • Business automation
  • Bedrock integrations

Watch out

Extended thinking is optional and off by default. Low/medium/high controls apply when enabled; high forbids maxTokens, temperature and topP overrides. The model card advertises 64K output, but the high-thinking guide describes outputs exceeding 65K and sometimes reaching 128K, so no universal hard output cap is asserted. Reasoning tokens are billed as output. Use the route-specific US/EU/JP/global ID supported by your account; documents are inputs and text is generated.

BalancedRecord checked October 1, 2026

GPT-5.6 Terra

OpenAI’s middle GPT-5.6 tier for balancing intelligence and cost, with text/image input and a 1.05M-token context.

Best for

  • Cost-sensitive production
  • Mixed reasoning workloads
  • High-volume agents

Watch out

GPT-6.1 Sol lists the same $2 input price and a lower $10 output price than Terra’s $12. Compare representative tasks rather than infer quality from token prices or one index. Terra remains listed in the API model catalog.

When the cheaper one wins

Amazon Nova 2 Lite is cheaper on output at $2.50 per million tokens against $12 for GPT-5.6 Terra — about 4.8×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. This compares standard short-context token rates, not total cost per accepted task. Include input, cache, context tiers, schedules, retries and review in your pilot.

Run the model picker

Evidence confidence: Medium

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output, parameter count.
  • No directly aligned benchmark setup — No benchmark has matching cited sources, source dates, units, effort and recorded run details on both models.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Older of the two catalog checks was 25 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Amazon Nova 2 Lite · GPT-5.6 Terra

Common questions

Amazon Nova 2 Lite vs GPT-5.6 Terra

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is Amazon Nova 2 Lite or GPT-5.6 Terra cheaper for input?
Amazon Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 per million input tokens, against $2 for GPT-5.6 Terra — roughly 6.7× the price. Estimate both input and output token volume for your workload. These are base rates; Amazon Nova 2 Lite: Bedrock Global Standard $0.30/$2.50 per MTok, cached input $0.075 and cache writes $0. Single-region $0.33/$2.75, cached $0.0825. Global Flex/Batch $0.15/$1.25; Global Priority $0.525/$4.375, cached $0.13125. Grounding costs $0.03 per request separately. Snapshot: September 30, 2026 native offer file; regional routes, service tiers and customization have separate meters. GPT-5.6 Terra: Launch $2.50/$15, reduced to $2/$12 on July 30. Above 272K input the full request bills $4/$18. Cached input $0.20; cache writes $2.50 at short context. Batch $1/$6 at short context. Regional/FedRAMP processing adds 10% where eligible.
Is Amazon Nova 2 Lite or GPT-5.6 Terra cheaper for output?
Amazon Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $2.50 per million output tokens, against $12 for GPT-5.6 Terra — roughly 4.8× the price. Estimate both input and output token volume for your workload. These are base rates; Amazon Nova 2 Lite: Bedrock Global Standard $0.30/$2.50 per MTok, cached input $0.075 and cache writes $0. Single-region $0.33/$2.75, cached $0.0825. Global Flex/Batch $0.15/$1.25; Global Priority $0.525/$4.375, cached $0.13125. Grounding costs $0.03 per request separately. Snapshot: September 30, 2026 native offer file; regional routes, service tiers and customization have separate meters. GPT-5.6 Terra: Launch $2.50/$15, reduced to $2/$12 on July 30. Above 272K input the full request bills $4/$18. Cached input $0.20; cache writes $2.50 at short context. Batch $1/$6 at short context. Regional/FedRAMP processing adds 10% where eligible.
Which has the larger context window, Amazon Nova 2 Lite or GPT-5.6 Terra?
GPT-5.6 Terra accepts 1.05M tokens against 1M for Amazon Nova 2 Lite. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Do Amazon Nova 2 Lite and GPT-5.6 Terra support the same reasoning levels?
Amazon Nova 2 Lite exposes low, medium, high, while GPT-5.6 Terra exposes none, low, medium, high, xhigh, max.
Should I use Amazon Nova 2 Lite or GPT-5.6 Terra?
Both are classified in our balanced tier; this editorial grouping does not imply equal capability. Amazon Nova 2 Lite is a candidate for document processing; GPT-5.6 Terra is a candidate for cost-sensitive production. Compare accuracy, tool reliability, latency and cost on representative tasks.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: Amazon Nova 2 Lite costs $0.30 per 1M tokens versus $2 for GPT-5.6 Terra — a 6.7x difference at the headline tier.
  • Context: GPT-5.6 Terra takes 1.05M against 1M for Amazon Nova 2 Lite — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
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