Claude Opus 4.5 Pricing: Complete Cost Breakdown (2026)

Claude Opus 4.5 is Anthropic's most capable model, sitting at the top of the Claude model family. It excels at complex reasoning, nuanced writing, coding, and analysis. But capability comes at a cost -- Opus 4.5 is also the most expensive Claude model.

This guide breaks down exactly what Claude Opus 4.5 costs, how it compares to alternatives, and how to optimize your spending.

Claude Opus 4.5 API Pricing

Metric	Claude Opus 4.5	Claude Sonnet 4	Claude Haiku 3.5
Input tokens	$15 / 1M tokens	$3 / 1M tokens	$0.80 / 1M tokens
Output tokens	$75 / 1M tokens	$15 / 1M tokens	$4 / 1M tokens
Context window	200K tokens	200K tokens	200K tokens
Max output	32K tokens	64K tokens	8K tokens
Prompt caching (input)	$1.875 / 1M tokens	$0.375 / 1M tokens	$0.10 / 1M tokens
Prompt caching (read)	$1.875 / 1M tokens	$0.375 / 1M tokens	$0.10 / 1M tokens

What does this mean in practice?

Here is what typical tasks cost with Opus 4.5:

Task	Input Tokens	Output Tokens	Cost
Simple question (100 words)	~150	~300	~$0.025
Code review (500 lines)	~3,000	~1,000	~$0.12
Long document analysis (10 pages)	~15,000	~2,000	~$0.375
Complex coding task	~5,000	~5,000	~$0.45
Full conversation (20 turns)	~30,000	~15,000	~$1.575

For reference, 1 million tokens is roughly 750,000 words -- about 10 average-length novels.

Claude Opus 4.5 vs. Claude Sonnet 4

The most common question: is Opus 4.5 worth 5x the cost of Sonnet 4?

Benchmark	Opus 4.5	Sonnet 4	Winner
MMLU (knowledge)	89.5%	88.7%	Opus (marginal)
HumanEval (coding)	93.2%	92.0%	Opus (marginal)
Creative writing	Excellent	Very Good	Opus
Nuanced reasoning	Excellent	Good	Opus (clear)
Speed	Slower	Faster	Sonnet
Cost efficiency	5x more expensive	Baseline	Sonnet

When to use Opus 4.5:

Tasks requiring deep, multi-step reasoning.
Creative writing where voice and nuance matter.
Complex analysis with ambiguous inputs.
High-stakes content where quality justifies cost.

When Sonnet 4 is enough:

Most coding tasks.
Straightforward Q&A.
Data extraction and formatting.
Routine content generation.
Any latency-sensitive application.

For most developers, Sonnet 4 at $3/$15 per million tokens delivers 90-95% of Opus quality at 20% of the cost.

Claude Opus 4.5 vs. Competitors

Pricing comparison

Model	Input (per 1M)	Output (per 1M)	Context
Claude Opus 4.5	$15.00	$75.00	200K
Claude Sonnet 4	$3.00	$15.00	200K
GPT-4o	$2.50	$10.00	128K
GPT-4o mini	$0.15	$0.60	128K
Gemini 2.5 Pro	$1.25	$10.00	1M
Gemini 2.0 Flash	$0.075	$0.30	1M
Grok 4	$3.00	$15.00	131K
DeepSeek V3	$0.27	$1.10	128K
Llama 3.3 70B (Groq)	$0.59	$0.79	128K

Claude Opus 4.5 is the most expensive model in this comparison by a significant margin. At $75 per million output tokens, it costs 7.5x more than GPT-4o for output and over 68x more than DeepSeek V3.

Quality-per-dollar analysis

Model	Relative Quality	Relative Cost	Quality/Dollar
Claude Opus 4.5	100 (baseline)	100 (baseline)	1.0x
Claude Sonnet 4	93	20	4.7x
GPT-4o	90	13	6.9x
Gemini 2.5 Pro	92	13	7.1x
DeepSeek V3	88	1.5	58.7x

On a pure quality-per-dollar basis, Opus 4.5 is the least efficient option. However, for tasks where that extra 5-10% of quality matters -- legal analysis, published content, complex research -- the premium may be justified.

Anthropic Subscription Plans

You can also access Claude Opus 4.5 through Anthropic's consumer products:

Plan	Price	Opus 4.5 Access	Usage
Free	$0	No	Limited Sonnet
Pro	$20/month	Limited	Higher Sonnet limits
Max (5x)	$100/month	Yes	5x Pro limits
Max (20x)	$200/month	Yes	20x Pro limits

The Max plans are the most cost-effective way to access Opus 4.5 if you use it frequently through the chat interface rather than the API.

API vs. Subscription: Which is cheaper?

For light usage (under 50 messages/day), the Pro or Max subscription is usually cheaper. For heavy or programmatic usage, the API gives you more control but costs add up quickly with Opus 4.5.

Break-even estimate: If you send ~100 medium-length messages per day using Opus 4.5, the API cost would be roughly $200-400/month, making the Max 20x plan ($200/month) the better deal.

How to Reduce Claude Opus 4.5 Costs

1. Use Prompt Caching

Prompt caching reduces input costs by 87.5% for repeated context. If you are sending the same system prompt or reference documents with every request, caching is essential.

from anthropic import Anthropic

client = Anthropic()

# First request establishes the cache
response = client.messages.create(
    model="claude-opus-4-5-20250220",
    max_tokens=1024,
    system=[
        {
            "type": "text",
            "text": "You are a legal document analyst. Here are the relevant statutes: [very long legal text...]",
            "cache_control": {"type": "ephemeral"}
        }
    ],
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Analyze clause 4.2 for compliance issues."}]
)

The cached system prompt costs $1.875/M tokens instead of $15/M tokens on subsequent requests.

2. Route by Task Complexity

Use a router pattern that sends simple tasks to cheaper models:

def route_to_model(task_description: str, complexity: str) -> str:
    if complexity == "high":
        return "claude-opus-4-5-20250220"  # $15/$75 per M
    elif complexity == "medium":
        return "claude-sonnet-4-20250514"   # $3/$15 per M
    else:
        return "claude-haiku-3-5-20241022"  # $0.80/$4 per M

# Or use a classifier to auto-detect complexity
def classify_and_route(prompt: str) -> str:
    # Use Haiku to classify, then route to appropriate model
    classification = client.messages.create(
        model="claude-haiku-3-5-20241022",
        max_tokens=10,
        messages=[{
            "role": "user",
            "content": f"Rate the complexity of this task as 'low', 'medium', or 'high': {prompt}"
        }]
    )
    complexity = classification.content[0].text.strip().lower()
    return route_to_model(prompt, complexity)

3. Optimize Token Usage

Be concise in prompts. Every unnecessary word costs money at $15/M input tokens.
Limit output length. Set max_tokens to the minimum needed.
Use structured output. JSON responses are typically shorter than prose.
Summarize context. Instead of sending full documents, send summaries when possible.

4. Batch API

Anthropic's Batch API offers 50% off standard pricing for non-time-sensitive workloads:

Metric	Standard	Batch (50% off)
Opus 4.5 input	$15 / 1M	$7.50 / 1M
Opus 4.5 output	$75 / 1M	$37.50 / 1M
Processing time	Seconds	Up to 24 hours

# Submit a batch job
batch = client.batches.create(
    requests=[
        {
            "custom_id": "task-1",
            "params": {
                "model": "claude-opus-4-5-20250220",
                "max_tokens": 1024,
                "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Analyze this document..."}]
            }
        }
        # ... more requests
    ]
)

5. Monitor and Set Alerts

Use Anthropic's usage dashboard to track spending:

Go to console.anthropic.com/settings/usage.
Set a monthly spending limit.
Configure alerts at 50%, 75%, and 90% of your limit.

Cost Estimator

Use this formula to estimate your monthly Opus 4.5 API costs:

Monthly cost = (daily_requests x avg_input_tokens x $15/1M) +
               (daily_requests x avg_output_tokens x $75/1M) x 30

Example: 200 requests/day, 2,000 input tokens, 1,000 output tokens each:

Input:  200 x 2,000 x $15/1,000,000 x 30 = $180/month
Output: 200 x 1,000 x $75/1,000,000 x 30 = $450/month
Total: $630/month

With prompt caching and routing, you could reduce this to under $200/month by sending 80% of requests to Sonnet instead.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Claude Opus 4.5 worth the premium? For most tasks, no. Sonnet 4 handles 90%+ of workloads at 20% of the cost. Reserve Opus 4.5 for tasks where quality is critical and cost is secondary.

Will Opus 4.5 get cheaper over time? Historically, Anthropic has reduced prices as newer models launch. Opus 4.5 may see price cuts when the next generation releases.

Can I try Opus 4.5 for free? You can access it through the free tier of claude.ai with very limited usage, or through the Max plans for heavier use. The API does not have a permanent free tier for Opus.

How does Opus 4.5 compare to GPT-4o for coding? Both are excellent at coding. GPT-4o is cheaper ($2.50/$10 vs. $15/$75). For most coding tasks, the quality difference does not justify the 6x price premium.

Wrapping Up

Claude Opus 4.5 is a premium model with premium pricing. At $15/$75 per million tokens, it is the most expensive mainstream AI model. For tasks requiring the highest quality reasoning and writing, it delivers. For everything else, Claude Sonnet 4 or GPT-4o offer dramatically better value.

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