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Model cost comparisonClaude Opus 5.5 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5: Cost
Claude Opus 5.5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 side by side, using prices from each provider's own pricing page.
At list price, Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs about 2.0x less per typical request than Claude Opus 5.5.
Price per token
| USD per 1M tokens | Claude Opus 5.5 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Input | $4.00 | $2.00 |
| Cached input / cache reads | $0.20 | $0.10 |
| Output | $20.00 | $10.00 |
| Batch input | $2.00 | $1.00 |
| Batch output | $10.00 | $5.00 |
| 1,000 typical requests | $16.00 | $8.00 |
| 1M typical requests a month | $16,000 | $8,000 |
A typical request here is 2,000 input and 400 output tokens. Prices checked October 30, 2026.
Which is cheaper?
At list price, Claude Sonnet 5.5 is about 2.0x cheaper than Claude Opus 5.5 for the same typical request. But price per token isn't cost per task. What matters is the cost of a successful result: a cheaper model that needs retries, longer prompts or more output can end up costing more.
How to decide
- Pick 50 to 200 real requests and the answers you'd accept.
- Run both models on them and record pass rate, tokens used and latency.
- Divide total cost by the number of passing answers: that's your cost per successful task.
- Route each kind of request to the model with the lowest cost per successful task.
Use both
You don't have to choose one. apicuts routes each request to the lowest-cost model that passes your evaluations, with your approval, and guarantees at least 20% lower cost after our fee. See how routing works.
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Opus 5.5 cheaper than Claude Sonnet 5.5?
Per typical request at list price, Claude Sonnet 5.5 is cheaper: $8.00 vs $16.00 per 1,000 requests of 2,000 input and 400 output tokens.
Should I switch from Claude Opus 5.5 to Claude Sonnet 5.5?
Only for the requests where it passes your quality checks. Test on your own evaluation set first, then route the requests that pass.
Sources: Anthropic's pricing page. Checked October 30, 2026.
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