Claude Opus 5 API pricing
Official Anthropic list price, last checked Oct 29, 2026. Updated Oct 29, 2026.
Claude Opus 5 costs $5 per 1M input tokens and $25 per 1M output tokens, cached input at $0.50, and a 1M-token context window, per Anthropic's official pricing page (checked Oct 29, 2026). It's a premium-priced model: number 74 of 77 by blended price ($10 per 1M tokens at a 3 to 1 input to output mix). On LMArena's Code Arena it ranks #7 of 50 models we price (relative score 56 out of 100). Cheaper pick: Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores 85 against 56 on the same board at $4 blended, 2.5x less. It's also one of our value picks for long documents.
Claude Opus 5 price per million tokens
| Claude Opus 5 price per million tokens | USD |
|---|---|
| Input | $5 |
| Cached input | $0.50 |
| Output | $25 |
| Blended, 3 parts input to 1 part output | $10 |
| Context window | 1M tokens |
Official note from Anthropic: Legacy model.
What Claude Opus 5 costs for real work
List-price estimates for a month, no discounts. Our math, not a quote: change the token counts in the plan vs API calculator.
| Workload | Tokens a month | Claude Opus 5 | GPT-5.5 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light: a side project or personal assistant | 2M in, 0.5M out | $22.50 | $25.00 | $9.00 |
| Medium: a small team or one product feature | 20M in, 5M out | $225 | $250 | $90.00 |
| Heavy: a production app | 200M in, 50M out | $2,250 | $2,500 | $900 |
| Medium with 80% of input cached | 20M in (16M cached), 5M out | $153 | $178 | $59.60 |
How Claude Opus 5 ranks on LMArena
Relative score: 100 is the top model we price on that board. Rank is among the models in our price table, not the full leaderboard.
| Board | Rank | Score /100 |
|---|---|---|
| Coding (Code Arena) | #7 of 50 | 56 |
| Chat (Text Arena) | #7 of 51 | 46 |
| Creative writing (Text Arena creative writing) | #7 of 51 | 38 |
| Roleplay and characters (Text Arena multi-turn) | #12 of 51 | 17 |
| Reasoning and math (Text Arena math) | #4 of 51 | 80 |
| Vision (Vision Arena) | #6 of 33 | 73 |
| Long documents (Document Arena) | #2 of 11 | 97 |
| Cheap bulk and agents (Agent Arena) | #8 of 34 | 65 |
Closest rivals to Claude Opus 5
The models nearest in price, other makers first. Ranks are on Code Arena, where we have them.
| Model | In / out | Blended | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.5 | $5 / $30 | $11.25 | Claude Opus 5 wins on both. Compare |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | $4 / $20 | $8 | GPT-5.6 Sol wins on price. Compare |
| Muse Wonder 1.0 | $4 / $20 | $8 | Muse Wonder 1.0 for price, Claude Opus 5 for quality. Compare |
| Kimi K3.1 Pro Highspeed | $4 / $20 | $8 | Kimi K3.1 Pro Highspeed wins on price. Compare |
Cheaper alternatives to Claude Opus 5
At least 40% cheaper blended, best LMArena score first.
| Model | In / out | Blended | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | $2 / $10 | $4 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 wins on both. Compare |
| GPT-6.1 Sol | $2 / $10 | $4 | GPT-6.1 Sol wins on both. Compare |
| Kimi K3.1 Pro | $2 / $10 | $4 | Kimi K3.1 Pro wins on both. Compare |
More from Anthropic
- Claude Opus 5.5$4 in, $20 out per 1M
- Claude Sonnet 5.5$2 in, $10 out per 1M
- Claude Haiku 5.5$0.10 in, $0.50 out per 1M
- Claude Fable 5.1$10 in, $50 out per 1M
FAQ
How much does the Claude Opus 5 API cost per million tokens?
$5 per 1M input tokens and $25 per 1M output tokens, plus $0.50 per 1M for cached input, as of Oct 29, 2026. A typical 3 to 1 input to output mix works out to $10 per 1M tokens.
Does Claude Opus 5 charge more for long prompts?
Anthropic doesn't list a long-prompt surcharge for Claude Opus 5. Its pricing note says: Legacy model.
Is Claude Opus 5 cheaper than GPT-5.5?
Yes. A medium month (20M input and 5M output tokens) costs $225 on Claude Opus 5 and $250 on GPT-5.5 at list price. On Code Arena, Claude Opus 5 ranks #7 and GPT-5.5 #37.
How does Claude Opus 5 rank on LMArena?
On Code Arena it is #7 of 50 models we price, with a relative score of 56 out of 100. It ranks on 8 of 8 boards we track.
What is a cheaper alternative to Claude Opus 5?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2 in and $10 out per 1M tokens, about 2.5x less blended, and scores 85 on Code Arena against 56 for Claude Opus 5.
Where does this Claude Opus 5 price come from?
From Anthropic's official pricing page, which we check every day. This page was last checked Oct 29, 2026.