At $15 input / $75 output per 1M tokens, Opus 4 is one of the most expensive models available. Anthropic recommends using Claude Sonnet 4 for most production use cases and reserving Opus 4 for tasks explicitly requiring maximum capability.
Exceptional instruction-following and nuanced judgment on ambiguous tasks
Strong agentic coding with deep multi-file project comprehension across its 200K context
Industry-leading long-form writing quality with coherent voice and structure
Reliable on complex multi-step reasoning chains with fewer hallucinations than many peers
Weaknesses
Output cost of $75/1M tokens makes it prohibitively expensive for high-volume or production pipelines
No native image generation capability despite multimodal input support
Slower inference than Claude Sonnet 4 or Haiku 3.5, making real-time applications impractical
Real-world use cases
What people actually use Claude Opus 4 for.
Auditing and refactoring a large legacy codebase with complex interdependencies across multiple files
Drafting a detailed technical white paper or legal memo requiring precise language and structured argumentation
Synthesizing and analyzing a 150K-token research corpus to extract novel insights and contradictions
How Claude Opus 4 compares
The nearest models people weigh against it, and what actually separates them.
vs Claude 3.5 Sonnet — Against Claude 3.5 Sonnet (Anthropic), Claude Opus 4 costs about 60% more per token and answers slower. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is the one to check first if the price difference matters more than the ceiling.
vs Claude Fable 5 — Against Claude Fable 5 (Anthropic), Claude Opus 4 costs about 33% more per token and gives up 5x on context. Claude Fable 5 is the one to check first if the price difference matters more than the ceiling.
vs Claude Fable 5.1 — Against Claude Fable 5.1 (Anthropic), Claude Opus 4 costs about 33% more per token and gives up 5x on context. Claude Fable 5.1 is the one to check first if the price difference matters more than the ceiling.
Price History
Claude Opus 4 pricing over time
→0% since May 9
59 data points · tracked daily since May 9, 2026
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Start using Claude Opus 4
Demanding professional tasks requiring deep reasoning, nuanced judgment, and high-quality long-form output.. Start free — no card required.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet is Anthropic's mid-cycle flagship model, balancing strong reasoning, coding, and instruction-following with a 200K context window. It sits between Haiku and Opus in Anthropic's lineup, offering near-flagship quality at a lower cost than top-tier models.
Verdict
One of the best models for coding and complex instruction-following, but its premium pricing demands premium use cases.
Quality score
81%
Pricing
$6.00/1M in
$30.00/1M out
Speed
Balanced
3/5 speed
Context
200k tokens
Pricing at $6 input / $30 output per million tokens is significantly higher than GPT-4o ($2.50/$10). Best accessed via Anthropic API or Amazon Bedrock. Claude 3.5 Sonnet (October 2024 version) supersedes the June 2024 release with improved performance.
Anthropic's new Mythos-class flagship and the most capable coding model anyone can use — 80.3% SWE-Bench Pro, an 11-point jump over Opus 4.8. 1M context, 128K output, native parallel subagents. Released June 9, 2026.
Verdict
New global #1 — 80.3% SWE-Bench Pro, the most capable model generally available.
Quality score
98%
Pricing
$10.00/1M in
$50.00/1M out
Speed
Deliberate
2/5 speed
Context
1M tokens
Launched June 9, 2026 as the public, Mythos-class release. Available on the Claude API, Microsoft Foundry, and Google Vertex AI. Free for all users until June 22, 2026. Same underlying model as Claude Mythos 5, with safeguards that block specific high-risk cyber responses.
Coding leaderSWE-Bench Pro #1Mythos-classParallel subagentsAgenticLong contextPremiumNew
Best for
The hardest coding tasks, autonomous multi-step agents, and frontier-grade reasoning
Anthropic's September 1, 2026 frontier release and the new capability ceiling for coding, agents, and scientific work. Base pricing is unchanged at $10/$50, but cache reads dropped 75% to $0.25/1M — roughly 25% cheaper on typical workloads and up to 45% cheaper on agentic ones. 1M context, 128K output, adaptive thinking always on.
Verdict
New frontier leader — better than Fable 5 on every published benchmark, and cheaper to run.
Quality score
98%
Pricing
$10.00/1M in
$50.00/1M out
Speed
Deliberate
2/5 speed
Context
1M tokens
Released September 1, 2026 alongside Claude Mythos 5.1, the first update to the Mythos-class line since Fable 5 on June 9. API ID claude-fable-5-1; generally available on the Claude API, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Foundry. Published launch numbers (Fable 5.1 / Fable 5 / Opus 5 / GPT-5.6 Sol): Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 52.6 / 24.7 / 29.0 / 22.4; Terminal-Bench 4.0 55.8 / 42.0 / 52.3 / 37.3; CursorBench 3.2.0 73.4 / 70.5 / 70.0 / 67.2; AutomationBench 31.4 / 17.1 / 26.9 / 19.6; OSWorld 2.0 strict 41.7 / 36.1 / 39.6; Humanity's Last Exam (no tools) 60.9 / 57.8 / 56.6; GDPval-AA v2 1853 / 1723 / 1824 / 1711. GDPval-AA v2 is rescaled from the v1 numbers quoted on the Fable 5 page and is not directly comparable to them.
Claude Opus 4 costs $15 per million input tokens and $75 per million output tokens on the API, with cached input at $1.5 per million. A month of 10M input and 2M output tokens runs about $300.00 at list price, before any batch or caching discounts.
What is the context window of Claude Opus 4?
Claude Opus 4 has a 200k tokens context window, with up to 8k tokens of output per response. That is the total of prompt plus response the model can hold in one request.
What is the knowledge cutoff of Claude Opus 4?
Claude Opus 4's training data runs through March 31, 2025, and the model was released on May 22, 2025. For anything after that date it needs web search or documents in the prompt.
What is Claude Opus 4 best for?
Claude Opus 4 is best for demanding professional tasks requiring deep reasoning, nuanced judgment, and high-quality long-form output.. It is a strong fit when that workflow matters more than the tradeoffs around premium pricing and deliberate speed.
When should I avoid Claude Opus 4?
You're building cost-sensitive applications, need real-time responses, or your task is routine enough to be handled well by Claude Sonnet 4.
What is a cheaper alternative to Claude Opus 4?
Claude Fable 5 (Anthropic) at $10.00/1M/1M input against Claude Opus 4's $15.00/1M/1M — roughly 33% less per token all in. New global #1 — 80.3% SWE-Bench Pro, the most capable model generally available. Compare it first if Claude Opus 4's pricing is the thing stopping you.
What is a faster alternative to Claude Opus 4?
Claude 3.5 Sonnet — balanced against Claude Opus 4's deliberate, with 200k tokens of context. Worth the swap when response time is what your users notice rather than the last few points of reasoning depth.
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