Model Comparison
GPT-6.1 Terra vs Grok 4.6
Overlapping ranges: the best configurations, GPT-6.1 Terra (max) and Grok 4.6 (high), are 1 Elo apart, and their 95% ranges overlap. Among 87 models, each ranked by its best configuration, GPT-6.1 Terra is #23 and Grok 4.6 is #24. Cost per script: $0.079 for GPT-6.1 Terra (max) and $0.156 for Grok 4.6 (high).
Last updated , from board data generated at 17:52 UTC.
Picks and Verdict
PickGPT-6.1 Terra
GPT-6.1 Terra (low)
Pick GPT-6.1 Terra (low) as the default, since its individual Elo range overlaps Grok's and it costs $0.027 a script with cleaner sentences in 0.5 minutes.
PickGrok 4.6
Grok 4.6 (high)
Pick Grok 4.6 (high) when the voice has to land in the first draft, since it leads Terra at low by 3.5 points on Tone & Voice Match at $0.156 a script.
These two have overlapping individual Elo ranges, and I'd choose on price, speed and what you'd rather fix by hand. GPT-6.1 Terra (max) sits 1 Elo above Grok 4.6 (high), Grok's only setting, and Grok sits 5 above GPT-6.1 Terra (low), with overlapping 95% ranges each time, though that alone does not test either gap: the #23 model of 87 against the #24 model. Terra's five settings sit within 37 Elo of each other, and low, the cheapest, is the one I would use. At low Terra costs $0.027 a script and answers in 0.5 minutes. Grok costs $0.156, almost six times as much, and thinks through 18,588 reasoning tokens over 5.2 minutes. Terra writes the cleaner sentences: 4.7 points up on craft and 7.1 on slop. Grok sounds more like me, 3.5 points up on tone, the metric with the most weight, and leads YouTube structure by 3.6. Grok scores higher on seven of the ten scripts against Terra at low. For most drafts I'd run Terra at low and fix the voice myself. When the voice has to be right in the first draft, Grok is worth the wait.
Disclosure: GPT-6.1 Terra comes from the same lab as one of the four judges, GPT-6.1 Sol. The other three sit outside its lab, so it is never scored by its own lab alone (how the panel works). The judge analysis measures how much each judge favors its own lab.
How to Read the Writing Score, Writing Elo and 95% Ranges
Writing Score and Writing Elo. The Writing Score (0 to 100) is the weighted average of the nine metric scores: seven from the judges, Length Adherence from code and the Slop Score half from each. The Writing Elo is a rating from pairwise comparisons: on each script, each configuration's average across its drafts is compared with every other configuration's, and gaps within the draft-to-draft variation count as draws. Elo rewards winning often, so the two can put configurations in a different order.
Elo ranges. Each 95% range shows how far a configuration's Elo could move if the drafts had come out slightly differently. It comes from resampling every configuration's recorded draft scores on each reference script and ranking again. Comparing two separate ranges does not test the Elo gap between them: ranges far apart are strong evidence for the order, and overlapping ranges do not mean a tie. The reference scripts stay fixed, so the ranges say nothing about new scripts. The methodology page has the full description.
All Thinking Levels of Both Models
Every ranked configuration of GPT-6.1 Terra and Grok 4.6, scored on the same 10 scripts by the same four judges.
- Each row is one configuration: the model at one thinking level. The dot is its Writing Elo, a rating from pairwise comparisons of the scores on each script, and the bar is its 95% range: how far that Elo could move if the drafts had come out slightly differently.
- Each bar describes one configuration. Overlap alone does not establish a tie or decide their order. Comparing these ranges does not directly test the difference between a pair.
- The table under the chart lists the same configurations in the same order and adds the Writing Score (the 0 to 100 consensus of the judges and code), cost, time and configuration rank (the place among all configurations on the board).
Shaded rows are the configurations chosen for the metric comparison below.
| Configuration | Writing Elo | 95% Range | Writing Score | Cost / Script | Time / Script | Reasoning Tokens | Configuration Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-6.1 Terra (max) | 1884 | 1849 to 1919 | 80.3 | $0.079 | 1.8 min | N/A | #46 |
| Grok 4.6 (high) | 1883 | 1836 to 1930 | 80.3 | $0.156 | 5.2 min | 18,588 | #47 |
| GPT-6.1 Terra (high) | 1880 | 1841 to 1917 | 80.3 | $0.027 | 0.5 min | N/A | #49 |
| GPT-6.1 Terra (low) | 1878 | 1831 to 1921 | 80.2 | $0.027 | 0.5 min | N/A | #50 |
| GPT-6.1 Terra (xhigh) | 1860 | 1819 to 1898 | 80.1 | $0.028 | 0.5 min | N/A | #53 |
| GPT-6.1 Terra (medium) | 1847 | 1805 to 1895 | 79.9 | $0.027 | 0.5 min | N/A | #55 |
Cost is one script at the API list price of the route used, uncached and without judging. Time is the average for one accepted script, retries included. N/A under Reasoning Tokens means the board has no separate reasoning count for that route.
Computed Findings Across Thinking Levels
Each finding is computed from the configurations above. The 95% ranges describe individual configurations; overlap alone establishes neither a tie nor an order for a pair.
- Best Configurations Head to Head. GPT-6.1 Terra (max) at Elo 1884 (range 1849 to 1919) and Grok 4.6 (high) at Elo 1883 (range 1836 to 1930) have overlapping 95% ranges.
- Same Level Name, Side by Side. At high, the one level name both models use, Grok 4.6 has the higher Writing Elo: 1883 against 1880. Their 95% ranges overlap there. Level names come from each provider, so the same name does not promise the same reasoning budget.
- Cheapest Configuration Overlapping the Top One. GPT-6.1 Terra (high), at $0.027 per script, is the cheapest configuration whose 95% range overlaps that of GPT-6.1 Terra (max), at $0.079 per script: 1841 to 1917 against 1849 to 1919. GPT-6.1 Terra (max) costs about 2.9 times as much per script.
- Cheapest GPT-6.1 Terra Configuration Above Grok 4.6's Best. The cheapest GPT-6.1 Terra configuration with a higher Writing Elo than Grok 4.6 (high), at Elo 1883 and $0.156 per script, is GPT-6.1 Terra (max), at Elo 1884 and $0.079 per script. Their 95% ranges overlap. It costs less than the configuration it beats.
- Lowest to Highest Thinking Level. GPT-6.1 Terra moves +6 Elo from low to max, at about 2.9 times the cost per script.
Two Chosen Configurations Compared
Pick one configuration of each model to compare their metric scores, consistency across drafts and per-script scores. Each menu starts on the model's best configuration.
Scores by Metric
GPT-6.1 Terra (max) scores higher on six of the nine metrics and Grok 4.6 (high) on three. The weight beside each metric is its share of the Writing Score.
Consistency Across Drafts
| GPT-6.1 Terra (max) | Grok 4.6 (high) | |
|---|---|---|
| Score spread across drafts (±) | 1.68 | 1.82 |
| Lowest script score | 77.9 Script 10 | 78.5 Script 3 |
| Highest script score | 83.2 Script 9 | 82.8 Script 6 |
| Range across scripts | 5.3 | 4.3 |
Spread is how much the Writing Score moves between a configuration's drafts, and lower is steadier. Green marks the better number in each row.
Scores by Script
Writing Score on each reference script. Gap is GPT-6.1 Terra (max) minus Grok 4.6 (high), and the higher score is in bold.
| Script | GPT-6.1 Terra (max) | Grok 4.6 (high) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Script 1 opinion / warning explainer | 80.2 | 81.6 | -1.4 |
| Script 2 news-analysis / skeptical explainer | 80.7 | 80.8 | -0.1 |
| Script 3 personal roadmap / opinion | 80.4 | 78.5 | +1.9 |
| Script 4 short explainer | 79.6 | 80.2 | -0.6 |
| Script 5 news-analysis / opinion explainer | 80.1 | 81.1 | -1.0 |
| Script 6 founder announcement / personal origin story | 82.2 | 82.8 | -0.6 |
| Script 7 personal technical walkthrough / agentic workflow case study | 79.9 | 79.0 | +0.9 |
| Script 8 product release announcement / personal observation | 79.1 | 79.7 | -0.6 |
| Script 9 career guide / hiring analysis | 83.2 | 80.4 | +2.8 |
| Script 10 engineering process walkthrough / presentation adaptation | 77.9 | 79.1 | -1.2 |
Scorecards and Thinking Pages
Each configuration name in the table above opens its own scorecard.
Compare With Another Model
Pick a second model. A pair with its own written match-up opens that page, and any other pair opens in the comparison tool.
Nearby Match-Ups by Best Writing Elo
Every configuration wrote five drafts for each of the same 10 briefs, from the same prompt. Generation was closed-book, with the prompt as the only source and no web search or other tools. Each judge scores every draft once: Claude Opus 5.5 at medium effort through the Claude Code subscription, GPT-6.1 Sol at medium reasoning through the Codex CLI, GLM 5.3 Flash through OpenRouter, and Jev 1.13, a typed judge from TypeSafe that answers each metric as a multiple-choice question. The channel's finished script is their reference for the voice, and it gets no score on the board itself.
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