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Model Pareto

GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst vs MAI-Image-2.6

In image generation, GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst scores 99.5 and MAI-Image-2.6 75.3 on the 0–100 quality scale. GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst costs 5.4× as much as MAI-Image-2.6 ($0.21 vs $0.039 per image).
GPT Image 2.5 SunburstMAI-Image-2.6
Focus

Image generation: quality vs price

Compared models are ringed; the other 36 ranked here are greyed.

Lower price is better. Pareto frontier: Z-Image Turbo, Muse Image, MAI-Image-2.6-Flash, MAI-Image-2.6, GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst. 1 models are not plotted: Qwen-Image-2.1.

1 model with no price data — shown in the strip at the left edge

Qwen-Image-2.1

  • Best-value frontier (nothing is both cheaper and better)
  • Evidencestrong → weak
  • Estimated from other categories
  • GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst
    Quality
    99.5
    Rank
    #1/38
    Price
    $0.21/img
    Speed
    108s

    vs MAI-Image-2.6: +24.2 quality · 5.4× price

  • MAI-Image-2.6
    Quality
    75.3
    Rank
    #4/38
    Price
    $0.039/img
    Speed
    —

    vs GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst: −24.2 quality · 0.18× price

Overview

Metric
GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst
MAI-Image-2.6
Lab
OpenAI
Microsoft AI
Released
Sep 8, 2026
Aug 10, 2026
Weights
Proprietary
Proprietary
Price per image
$0.21
$0.039Best
Time per image
108s
—

Quality by category

0–100 within each category (100 = best tracked model). Rank is among all models ranked there. Click a row to focus it.

Metric
GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst
MAI-Image-2.6
Image generation
99.5±1.9Best
#1/38Verifiedbest value
75.3±3.2
#4/38Verifiedbest value

Image generation benchmarks

Rank among models with a published score, and the leaderboard around each model. ~ italic = no published score, estimated from related benchmarks.

Metric
GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst
MAI-Image-2.6
AA Text-to-Image Arena
third-party
#1/351196BestVerified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1196
  2. #2GPT Image 2.5 Flare1190
artificialanalysis.ai · 2026-09-24
#5/351147Verified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1196
  2. #4Grok Imagine Image 2.01154
  3. #5MAI-Image-2.61147
  4. #6Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image)1122
artificialanalysis.ai · 2026-09-24
AA Image Editing Arena
third-party
#1/291181BestVerified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1181
  2. #2GPT Image 2.5 Flare1163
artificialanalysis.ai · 2026-09-24
#3/291135Verified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1181
  2. #2GPT Image 2.5 Flare1163
  3. #3MAI-Image-2.61135
  4. #4MAI-Image-2.6-Flash1125
artificialanalysis.ai · 2026-09-24
LMArena Text-to-Image
third-party
#1/301423BestVerified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1423
  2. #2GPT Image 2.5 Flare1401
arena.ai · 2026-09-21
#4/301334Verified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1423
  2. #3GPT Image 21381
  3. #4MAI-Image-2.61334
  4. #5Grok Imagine Image 2.01302
arena.ai · 2026-09-21
LMArena Image Edit
third-party
#1/241526BestVerified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1526
  2. #2GPT Image 2.5 Flare1482
arena.ai · 2026-09-21
#5/241429Verified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1526
  2. #4Grok Imagine Image 2.01430
  3. #5MAI-Image-2.61429
  4. #6Muse Image1402
arena.ai · 2026-09-21
GenEval
day 0
~#2/4~88.9%Estimated
  1. #1HiDream-O1-Image90.0%
  2. ~#2GPT Image 2.5 SunburstEstimated88.9%
  3. #2Qwen-Image87.0%
estimated from related benchmarks
~#2/4~87.7%Estimated
  1. #1HiDream-O1-Image90.0%
  2. ~#2MAI-Image-2.6Estimated87.7%
  3. #2Qwen-Image87.0%
estimated from related benchmarks
DPG-Bench
day 0
~#2/4~89.1%Estimated
  1. #1HiDream-O1-Image89.8%
  2. ~#2GPT Image 2.5 SunburstEstimated89.1%
  3. #2Qwen-Image88.3%
estimated from related benchmarks
~#3/4~88.2%Estimated
  1. #1HiDream-O1-Image89.8%
  2. #2Qwen-Image88.3%
  3. ~#3MAI-Image-2.6Estimated88.2%
  4. #3Z-Image Turbo84.9%
estimated from related benchmarks