Claude (Anthropic) Pricing
All plans and pricing as of 2026-08-17
Pro
- ✓5x more usage than Free
- ✓Claude Opus 5 -- the strongest model on Pro as of 2026-07-24
- ✓Sonnet 5 as the everyday default
- ✓Effort control + extended thinking
- ✓Priority access
Max (5x)
- ✓5x Pro usage
- ✓Priority queue
- ✓Opus 5 is the DEFAULT model on Max as of 2026-07-24
- ✓Full effort control + fast mode
Max (20x)
- ✓20x Pro usage
- ✓Highest priority
- ✓All generally-available models
- ✓Best for power users and agents
API (Opus 5)
- ✓Launched 2026-07-24 as `claude-opus-5`; same rate as Opus 4.8, half of Fable 5's $10/$50
- ✓Default model on Claude Max, strongest model on Claude Pro; also on Claude Code and Claude Cowork
- ✓Anthropic's stated positioning: within 0.5% of Fable 5's peak CursorBench 3.2 score at half the cost per task
- ✓Available via the Claude API, Google Cloud, and Bedrock (anthropic.claude-opus-5)
API (Opus 4.8)
- ✓Unchanged from Opus 4.7 pricing
- ✓1M context window
- ✓Fast mode at $10 / $50 per 1M (2.5x speed, 3x cheaper than prior fast mode)
- ✓Tool use, MCP, high-res vision; Bedrock, Vertex AI, Foundry
API (Sonnet 5)
- ✓Launched 2026-06-30 as the 'most agentic Sonnet yet' -- approaches Opus 4.8 quality at lower cost
- ✓Default model on Free + Pro; also on Max/Team/Enterprise, Claude Code, and the API (claude-sonnet-5)
- ✓Updated tokenizer (input maps to ~1.0-1.35x more tokens depending on content type)
- ✓OSWorld-Verified 78.5%; scored 0.0% on cyber-exploit-development evals (safety)
API (Fable 5)
- ✓First publicly available Mythos-class model (launched 2026-06-09; suspended 6/12 by US-gov order; RESTORED globally 2026-07-01 after controls lifted 6/30)
- ✓PERMANENT plan split from 2026-07-20 (announced 7/18): Max + Team Premium keep Fable 5 included at 50% of usage limits; Pro + Team Standard move to pay-as-you-go credits with a one-time $100 grant
- ✓API rate $10/$50 per 1M; tiered credit bundles discount up to 30%
- ✓Auto-fallback on cyber/bio/chem-flagged requests; **as of 2026-08-07 the biology classifier was retuned and biology fallbacks dropped ~85%**, and the stated fallback target is now **Opus 5** (dual-use virology/toxicology/molecular design still fall back); mandatory 30-day retention on Mythos-class traffic (not used for training)
Is Claude (Anthropic) Worth the Price?
Value Score: 8/10
Overall Score: 8.5/10 · Writers, analysts, developers, and anyone who values quality of output over quantity of features. If you care about how good the actual text is, Claude is the best.
Claude is the LLM you pick when quality matters more than features, and the July 24 arrival of Opus 5 is the most consequential thing to happen to that calculus all year. Opus 5 costs exactly what Opus 4.8 cost -- $5/$25 per 1M -- while Anthropic claims it lands within 0.5% of Fable 5 on CursorBench at half the cost per task, and it is now the default on Max and the strongest model available on Pro. That quietly demotes Fable 5 from 'the model you pay up for' to 'the model you reach for when nothing else will do,' because the $10/$50 tier now has to justify a much smaller gap. Below it, Sonnet 5 (June 30) remains the default on Free and Pro at $2/$10 through August, and it is still the right pick for everyday agentic and coding work. Worth knowing before you quote numbers: Anthropic published only comparative benchmark claims for Opus 5, no absolute scores. The practical read: Sonnet 5 for volume, Opus 5 for anything that matters, Fable 5 only when the frontier is genuinely the requirement -- with Apple naming Claude a selectable system assistant in iOS 27 this fall.
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How Claude (Anthropic) Pricing Compares
| Tool | Free Tier | Starting Price | Value Score | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude (Anthropic)(this tool) | Yes | $0 | 8/10 | 8.5 |
| Muse Spark (Meta) | Yes | $0 | 10/10 | 8.8 |
| Gemini (Google) | Yes | $0 | 9/10 | 8.3 |
| MiMo (Xiaomi) | Yes | $0 | 9/10 | 8.3 |
| Hunyuan 3 (Tencent Hy3) | Yes | $0 | 9.5/10 | 8.1 |
| Grok | Yes | $0 | 7.5/10 | 7.5 |