OpenAI: gpt-oss-safeguard-20b API Pricing
OpenAI: gpt-oss-safeguard-20b costs $0.075 per 1M input tokens and $0.300 per 1M output tokens (cache reads: $0.037). Context window: 131K. Prices verified 2026-10-21 · source
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Token economics
| Token type | Price | vs base input |
|---|---|---|
| Standard input | $0.075 | — |
| Cache read | $0.037 | −50% |
| Output | $0.300 | — |
Prompt caching stores repeated context server-side: reads cost far less, but writes carry a one-time premium.
Higher effort = deeper thinking = more reasoning tokens billed as output.
What would OpenAI: gpt-oss-safeguard-20b cost you per month?
| Workload | Requests/mo | Avg tokens (in/out) | Est. monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light chatbot | 10,000 | 800 / 400 | $1.80 |
| Coding agent | 5,000 | 8,000 / 2,000 | $6.00 |
| RAG pipeline | 30,000 | 4,000 / 500 | $13.50 |
| Doc summarizer | 2,000 | 20,000 / 1,000 | $3.60 |
Estimates use list prices without prompt caching. Caching can cut input cost by up to 90% on repeated context.
About OpenAI: gpt-oss-safeguard-20b
gpt-oss-safeguard-20b is a safety reasoning model from OpenAI built upon gpt-oss-20b. This open-weight, 21B-parameter Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model offers lower latency for safety tasks like content classification, LLM filtering, and trust...
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Frequently asked questions
How much does OpenAI: gpt-oss-safeguard-20b cost?
OpenAI: gpt-oss-safeguard-20b costs $0.075 per 1M input tokens and $0.300 per 1M output tokens; cached input tokens cost $0.037 per 1M. Verified 2026-10-21 — provider source.
What is the context window?
131K tokens, with up to 66K output tokens per response. That's roughly 164 pages of text in a single request.
Does it support prompt caching?
Yes — cached input is $0.037/1M, about 50% cheaper than standard input. Agents and RAG workloads with repeated context benefit most.
What's a cheaper alternative?
ScaleDown: Summarize saves about 79% on a typical workload with comparable quality.
Official resources
- OpenAI: gpt-oss-safeguard-20b on OpenRouter — live endpoint, pricing source of record.
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