Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6

Claude Opus 4.8 versus Claude Sonnet 4.6 specifications and price.
metric	Claude Opus 4.8	Claude Sonnet 4.6
Input / 1M	$5.00	$3.00
Output / 1M	$25.00	$15.00
Context	1M	1M
Cost @ typical workload	$4,000/mo	$2,400/mo
Modality	text + image	text + image
Price source	list	list
Provider	Anthropic	Anthropic

Which should you pick?

On a typical workload, Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $2,400/mo against Claude Opus 4.8's $4,000/mo — roughly 1.7× cheaper. But the ranking depends on your output-to-input ratio: output is the pricier direction for both, so an output-heavy job (code generation, long answers) widens the gap while an input-heavy one (summarization, retrieval) narrows it. Both share the same context window, so that's not a deciding factor here.

These are list and routed market prices, not measured outcomes. Two models at the same rate can still cost different amounts to finish the same task, because verbose or reasoning-heavy models emit more tokens. That gap is exactly what measured cost-per-task captures.

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 4.8 or Claude Sonnet 4.6 cheaper?

For a typical workload (1,500 input + 500 output tokens × 200,000 requests/month), Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $2,400/mo versus $4,000/mo for Claude Opus 4.8 — about 1.7× less. Because output is priced higher than input, the winner can flip if your workload writes much more or less than this; check your own numbers in the calculator.

What's the main difference between Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Sonnet 4.6?

On price, Claude Opus 4.8 is $5.00/$25.00 per 1M (in/out) and Claude Sonnet 4.6 is $3.00/$15.00. Both carry the same context window.

More comparisons

Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 — full specs and price history.
API cost calculator — compare on your own workload.
All comparisons — the full head-to-head index.