The GPT-6 Astra effort ladder: seven rungs, one cliff, one trap
Mean reasoning tokens per call on five multi-step tasks, 3 runs each. Every rung from low up is 100% correct; only none changes accuracy.
0
100
200
300
reasoning tokens / call
0
none
20%
$0.0043 per correct
243
disabled
100%
$0.0131 per correct
151
low
100%
$0.0085 per correct
159
medium
100%
$0.0089 per correct
203
high
100%
$0.0111 per correct
279
xhigh
100%
$0.0149 per correct
370
max
100%
$0.0195 per correct
the cliff: 3 of 15
the trap: 54% over low
the floor
2.3x low, same answers
Cost per correct answer at list price ($10 input, $50 output per million tokens). max is 2.3x low per call; disabled is not an off switch.