Claude API Pricing 2026:
Sonnet, Opus & Haiku Cost Guide
Complete Anthropic Claude API pricing for 2026 — Claude Sonnet 4.6, Claude Opus 4.6, and Claude Haiku 4.5. Token costs, context windows, and how Claude compares to OpenAI.
Claude API Pricing 2026 — All Models
| Model | Input (per 1M) | Output (per 1M) | Cache Write | Cache Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4.6 | $15.00 | $75.00 | $18.75 | $1.50 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | $3.00 | $15.00 | $3.75 | $0.30 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | $0.25 | $1.25 | $0.30 | $0.03 |
| Claude Sonnet 3.7 | $3.00 | $15.00 | $3.75 | $0.30 |
| Claude Haiku 3.5 | $0.80 | $4.00 | $1.00 | $0.08 |
Which Claude Model Should You Use?
| Use Case | Best Model | Why |
|---|---|---|
| High-volume chatbots, classification | Haiku 4.5 | 12× cheaper than Sonnet, fast, handles most tasks |
| Customer support, summarization | Sonnet 4.6 | Best quality/cost ratio for complex tasks |
| Complex coding, analysis, research | Sonnet 4.6 | Excellent for most demanding production tasks |
| Mission-critical reasoning, agentic tasks | Opus 4.6 | Best Claude model, highest accuracy |
| Document processing (100K+ token docs) | Sonnet 4.6 | 200K context on all Claude models |
Claude vs OpenAI Pricing Comparison
| Tier | Claude | OpenAI | Input Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budget | Haiku 4.5 | GPT-4o mini | $0.25 vs $0.15/M — GPT wins |
| Balanced | Sonnet 4.6 | GPT-4o | $3.00 vs $2.50/M — GPT slightly cheaper |
| Premium | Opus 4.6 | o1 | $15.00 vs $15.00/M — identical |
| Extended context | Any Claude (200K) | GPT-4o (128K) | Claude wins on context length |
Claude Prompt Caching — Major Cost Savings
Claude's prompt caching is one of the most powerful cost optimization features in 2026. When the same prompt prefix is reused, cache reads cost 90% less than standard input:
- Sonnet 4.6 standard: $3.00/M → cache read: $0.30/M (10× cheaper)
- Haiku 4.5 standard: $0.25/M → cache read: $0.03/M (8× cheaper)
- Minimum cacheable block: 1,024 tokens
- Cache TTL: 5 minutes (refreshed on each use)
Best for: RAG systems with large context, long system prompts, multi-turn conversations with a fixed system prompt.
Real-World Claude Cost Examples
Customer Support Bot (50,000 conversations/month)
- System prompt: 2,000 tokens (cached after first call)
- Per conversation: 500 tokens fresh input + 300 tokens output
- Without caching (Sonnet 4.6): $3.00 × 125M + $15 × 15M = $375 + $225 = $600/month
- With caching (2K cached, 500 fresh): Cache writes + reads + output ≈ $80/month
- Savings: 87% reduction with caching
Document Analysis Pipeline (10,000 docs/month)
- Average: 5,000 tokens input + 800 tokens output
- Haiku 4.5: $1.25 + $1.00 = $2.25/month
- Sonnet 4.6: $15 + $12 = $27/month
Claude API Free Tier
Anthropic offers limited free credits for new accounts via the API. The Claude.ai consumer product offers a free tier with limited messages on Haiku and a Claude Pro subscription at $20/month for priority access to Sonnet and Opus.
Calculate Your Claude API Costs
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