Recursive: Flint (free) vs OpenAI GPT-5.5: Live Promos, Pricing, Hidden Fees & Latency
Recursive: Flint (free) (recursive/flint-v1.0:free) 2026 Q4 Developer Promotion & Volume Credits
Official 2026 Q4 promotion for Recursive: Flint (free): Activate ephemeral prefix caching to slash input costs by 50% (down to 0/1M) or route via asynchronous Batch API for 50% off standard token rates.
OpenAI GPT-5.5 (chat-latest) Startup Credits & Batch API 50% Off Promo
OpenAI GPT-6.1 Sol ($2/$10 base rate) qualifies for immediate 95% automatic prefix caching ($0.10/1M), 50% off 24-hour Batch API completions ($1/$5), and up to $150,000 in OpenAI/Azure Foundry credits via Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub (no VC funding required for initial tiers).
In Etuki October 2026 FinOps telemetry comparing Recursive: Flint (free) (API ID: recursive/flint-v1.0:free) vs OpenAI GPT-5.5 (API ID: chat-latest), Recursive: Flint (free) offers lower standard input pricing at $0/1M tokens ($0/1M output), while Recursive: Flint (free) leads in cached prefix economics at $0/1M tokens (50% discount). Recursive: Flint (free) achieves a 40ms faster P90 time-to-first-token latency (280ms vs 320ms).
Auto-discovered via live global telemetry registry.
Official gpt-5.5-chat-latest cached input rate is $0.50/1M (90% off $5.00 input). Migrate to GPT-6.1 Sol ($2/$10, Cache $0.10) to cut spend by 50%.
| Specification / FinOps Dimension | Recursive: Flint (free) | OpenAI GPT-5.5 | Verified Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official Vendor API ID | recursive/flint-v1.0:free | chat-latest | Pinned Snapshot IDs |
| Standard Input / Output (per 1M) | $0 / $0 | $5 / $30 | Recursive: Flint (free) |
| Cache Read Price (per 1M) | $0/1M (50% Off) | $0.5/1M (90% Off) | Recursive: Flint (free) |
| Context Window / Max Output | 256K In / 230K Out | 128K In / 128K Out | Recursive: Flint (free) |
| P90 First-Token / Edge Latency | 280ms | 320ms | Recursive: Flint (free) (-40ms) |
Flint is an open-weight mixture-of-experts model from Recursive, with about 2.5B active parameters out of 40B total, built by Recursive's autoresearch system Eureka Machine for cod
Flagship GPT-5 series general model with configurable reasoning_effort from none to xhigh.
Real-Time Stack Cost & Hidden-Fee Simulator (MAU / Token / Egress / GMV)
Calibrated with Reddit r/FinOps & r/devops telemetry: Includes Context Caching, Bandwidth Egress, and MoR Tax
🟢Switch from Recursive: Flint (free) to OpenAI GPT-5.5
Flagship GPT-5 series general model with configurable reasoning_effort from none to xhigh. Verified P90 latency of 320ms.