Claude Opus 5 vs Claude Sonnet 5
Data reconciled August 15, 2026
Short answer
Claude Sonnet 5 is 2.5× cheaper than Claude Opus 5 on input and 2.5× cheaper on output, while giving up nothing on context or capabilities. On measurable parameters the choice is unambiguous.
Side by side
| Parameter | Claude Opus 5 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Input, $ per 1M tokens | $5.00 | $2.00 |
| Output, $ per 1M tokens | $25.00 | $10.00 |
| Cache read, $ per 1M | $0.50 | $0.20 |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Max output | 128,000 | 128,000 |
| Vision | yes | yes |
| Tools | yes | yes |
| Reasoning | yes | yes |
| Status | available | available |
What it costs on your own workload
A price gap per million tokens says little until your volumes are plugged in: on a long fixed system prompt the winner is the model with cheap cache reads, not the one with a cheap input rate. Run Claude Opus 5 and Claude Sonnet 5 against your own numbers.
Open the cost calculatorWhat is deliberately absent
We do not compare answer quality and we do not reprint third-party benchmarks. We have no quality measurements of our own, and external tables go stale faster than prices while being compiled, almost always, by someone with a stake in the result. What is here is only what we reconcile ourselves every day: prices, limits and supported capabilities.