While I understand why they used the METR data, a cleaner look would be against the current cost-optimal frontier of open models (e.g. GLM-5.1 and MiniMax-M2.7). That paints a very different picture. Comparing just the frontier models at the time of the METR report invariably leads to looking at providers who are pushing the limits of cost at the time of the report.

GPT-5 was shown as being on the costly end, surpassed by o3 at over $100/hr. I can't directly compare to METR's metrics, but a good proxy is the cost of the Artificial Analysis suite. GLM-5.1 is less than half the cost to complete the suite of GPT-5 and is dramatically more capable than both GPT-5 and o3.

So while their analysis is interesting, it points towards the frontier continuing to test the limits of acceptable pricing (as Mythos is clearly reinforcing) and the lagging 6-12 months of distillation and refinement continuing to bring the cost of comparable capabilities to much more reasonable levels.