Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6
Cost and capability comparison. For a sample workload of 1,000 input and 500 output tokens across 100,000 requests/month, Claude Sonnet 4.6 is cheaper by about $700.00/month.
| Claude Opus 4.8 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Intelligence | ||
| Arena · Overall(LMArena Elo — higher is better) | 1452 | 1458✓ |
| Arena rank (overall) | #25 | #19✓ |
| Arena · Coding | 1539✓ | 1522 |
| Arena · Math & reasoning | 1435✓ | 1400 |
| Arena · Agentic / tool use | 1445✓ | 1408 |
| Score evidence | Measured | Measured |
| Pricing (USD / 1M tokens) | ||
| Input | $5.00 | $3.00✓ |
| Output | $25.00 | $15.00✓ |
| Cached input (read) | $0.5000 | $0.3000✓ |
| Cache write | $6.25 | $3.75✓ |
| Blended(3:1 input:output blend) | $10.00 | $6.00✓ |
| Specs & capabilities | ||
| Provider | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Context window | 1M (1,000,000) | 1M (1,000,000) |
| Max output | 64,000 | 64,000 |
| Modalities | text, image | text, image |
| Vision | Yes | Yes |
| Tool use | Yes | Yes |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes |
| Prompt caching | Yes | Yes |
| Batch pricing | Yes | Yes |
| Tokenizer | claude | claude |
| Release date | 2026-05-28 | — |
| Status | ga | ga |
Intelligence scores are community Arena ratings from LMArena / arena.ai, used under CC BY 4.0. Snapshot last refreshed 27 August 2026. Scores are a relative signal, not an absolute measure of capability. A Measured score was voted on directly; an Estimated score is inherited from an identical base model (a regional/creator-prefixed hosting duplicate). See our methodology.
Compare on your own workload
Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 are pre-loaded. Adjust the tokens and monthly volume to see which is cheaper for your usage.
Used unless you set active users below.
Results update automatically as you type.
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Anthropic | $0.0105 | $1,050.00 | $12,600.00 | 1,000,000 |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | Anthropic | $0.0175 | $1,750.00 | $21,000.00 | 1,000,000 |
FAQ
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?
For a workload of 1,000 input and 500 output tokens over 100,000 requests/month, Claude Sonnet 4.6 is cheaper, costing about $1,050.00/month versus $1,750.00/month.
What is the context window of Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Claude Opus 4.8 supports 1,000,000 tokens, while Claude Sonnet 4.6 supports 1,000,000 tokens.
Estimates for planning only. Verify current pricing with each provider.