Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6
Side-by-side comparison of API pricing, specs, benchmarks, and capabilities
|
by Anthropic
|
by Anthropic
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Status | Current flagship | Current mid tier |
| Released | May 28, 2026 | Jan 15, 2026 |
| Pricing per million tokens | ||
| Input | $5.00/Mtok | $3.00/Mtok |
| Output | $25.00/Mtok | $15.00/Mtok |
| Blended avg | $15.00/Mtok | $9.00/Mtok |
| Cached input | $0.500/Mtok | $0.300/Mtok |
| Specifications | ||
| Context window | 200K tokens | 200K tokens |
| Parameters | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Speed (TPS) | — | — |
| Modalities | ||
| Input |
textimage
|
textimage
|
| Benchmarks from Vellum LLM Leaderboard | ||
| Avg benchmark score | 80 | 73.8 |
| Perf / dollar | 5.3 | 8.2 |
| GPQA Diamond | 93.6 | — |
| SWE-Bench | 88.6 | — |
| Providers | ||
| Available from |
Anthropic — $5.00/$25.00/Mtok
|
Anthropic — $3.00/$15.00/Mtok
|
Cost at scale — 1M tokens (50/50 input/output)
| Volume | Claude Opus 4.8 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M tokens | $15 | $9 | $6 (40%) |
| 10M tokens | $150 | $90 | $60 (40%) |
| 100M tokens | $1500 | $900 | $600 (40%) |
| 1000M tokens | $15000 | $9000 | $6000 (40%) |
Summary
Claude Opus 4.8 by Anthropic costs $5.00/Mtok input and $25.00/Mtok output, with a 200K-token context window. It supports text, image input.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 by Anthropic costs $3.00/Mtok input and $15.00/Mtok output, with a 200K-token context window. It supports text, image input.
On a blended cost basis, Claude Sonnet 4.6 is 66.7% cheaper than Claude Opus 4.8.
On benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher (80 vs 73.8) on average. In terms of value, Claude Sonnet 4.6 has better performance per dollar (8.2 vs 5.3).
Note: Pricing is per million tokens. Actual costs vary with usage patterns, prompt caching, and batch discounts. Always verify against official provider pricing pages.