Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Opus 5.5

Pick up to 3 models · pricing, context and capabilities · simulate your product cost

Data updated on September 30, 2026· 217 models

AnthropicOpus 4.8

Claude Opus 4.8 is Anthropic's most capable generally available model in the Opus family.

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Reasoning estimated
Speed estimated
Input
Output
Context
1 M tokens
Max output
128 K
Input, $ per 1M tokens
$5.00
Output, $ per 1M tokens
$25.00
Cache read, $ per 1M
$0.500
Batch (input / output)
$2.50 / $12.50
Tool calling
Yes
Released
05/28/2026
Knowledge cutoff
2026-01
API id
anthropic/claude-opus-4.8
AnthropicOpus 5.5

Claude Opus 5.5 is Anthropic's flagship model for demanding reasoning, coding, and long-horizon agentic work, succeeding Claude Opus 5.

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Reasoning estimated
Speed estimated
Input
Output
Context
1 M tokens
Max output
128 K
Input, $ per 1M tokens
▲$4.00
Output, $ per 1M tokens
▲$20.00
Cache read, $ per 1M
$0.200
Batch (input / output)
$2.00 / $10.00
Tool calling
Yes
Released
▲09/22/2026
Knowledge cutoff
2026-06
API id
anthropic/claude-opus-5.5
Third model (optional)
text image audio video PDF / file reasoning (1 to 5, estimated by family) speed (1 to 4, estimated by family)▲ best value among the selected

Which is the better API choice: Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Opus 5.5?

  • Claude Opus 5.5: cheapest input (20% less than Claude Opus 4.8)
  • Claude Opus 5.5: cheapest output
  • Claude Opus 5.5: the newest (09/22/2026)

Claude Opus 5.5 costs 20% less on input and 20% less on output than Claude Opus 4.8 ($4.00 / $20.00 versus $5.00 / $25.00 per million tokens). All accept 1 M tokens of context. Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Opus 5.5 offer a batch tier at half price for jobs that do not need an immediate answer.

What would your product cost?

Estimate the monthly cost with your app's real volume. List prices, no cache or batch discounts.

Claude Opus 4.8
$175.00/mo
Claude Opus 5.5
$140.00/mo

With Claude Opus 5.5 you save $35.00 a month versus Claude Opus 4.8 (20% less).

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  3. 3Qwen3.7 Flash Qwen$0.97
  4. 4DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 DeepSeek$1.55
  5. 5Ministral 3 3B 2512 Mistral$1.90
  6. 6Qwen3.5-Flash Qwen$2.02

Paste your prompt: tokens and cost per model

Rough estimate (about 4 characters per token). Nothing is sent to any server.

76tokens approx.287 characters

Cost of sending it 1,000 times (input only)

  1. 1Claude Sonnet 5.5 Anthropic$0.152
  2. 2Claude Sonnet 5 Anthropic$0.152
  3. 3Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic$0.304
  4. 4Claude Opus 4.8 Anthropic$0.380
  5. 5Claude Opus 5 Anthropic$0.380
  6. 6Claude Opus 4.7 Anthropic$0.380
  7. 7Claude Fable 5.1 Anthropic$0.760
  8. 8Claude Fable 5 Anthropic$0.760

Popular comparisons

Frequently asked questions

Which is the better API choice: Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Opus 5.5?

Claude Opus 5.5 costs 20% less on input and 20% less on output than Claude Opus 4.8 ($4.00 / $20.00 versus $5.00 / $25.00 per million tokens). All accept 1 M tokens of context. Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Opus 5.5 offer a batch tier at half price for jobs that do not need an immediate answer.

Which is cheaper: Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Opus 5.5?

Claude Opus 5.5 is cheaper: $4.00 per million input tokens and $20.00 per million output tokens, versus $5.00 / $25.00 for Claude Opus 4.8.

Which has more context: Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Opus 5.5?

Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Opus 5.5 accept the same context: 1 M tokens.

Which is newer: Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Opus 5.5?

Claude Opus 5.5 was released on 09/22/2026; Claude Opus 4.8 on 05/28/2026.

What would 10,000 requests a month cost with Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Opus 5.5?

With 1,500 input and 400 output tokens per request: Claude Opus 4.8: $175.00; Claude Opus 5.5: $140.00 a month, at list price.

Where do the prices come from and how often are they updated?

From the public catalogs of OpenRouter, models.dev and LiteLLM, which publish each provider's list prices. They sync once a day and the last update date is shown above the comparison.

What does price per million tokens mean?

It is what the provider charges per million tokens you send (input) or the model generates (output). A token is roughly 4 characters. Output almost always costs more than input.

Sources: OpenRouter, models.dev and LiteLLM. Prices in USD per million tokens, list price, no volume discounts. Prompt tokens are an estimate; each provider's tokenizer may differ.