Anthropic
Claude Opus 5: price, context window, and caching
The previous everyday Opus, pitched as close to Claude Fable 5 at half the price. Anthropic now recommends moving to Claude Opus 5.5.
Released July 24, 2026 · Prices as of September 26, 2026
In Anthropic’s words
“It's a thoughtful and proactive model that comes close to the frontier intelligence of Claude Fable 5 at half the price.”
Facts
Specs and prices
| Fact | Claude Opus 5 |
|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic |
| API model id | claude-opus-5 |
| Released | July 24, 2026 |
| Status | Previous generation |
| Context window | 1M tokens |
| Max output | 128K tokens |
| Open weights | No |
| Input, per 1M tokens | $5 |
| Cache hit, per 1M | $0.50 |
| Cache write, per 1M | $6.25 (5-minute), $10 (1-hour) |
| Output, per 1M tokens | $25 |
| Runs in | Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, OpenRouter, and GitHub Copilot |
Standard API rates in US dollars, as published by the maker on September 26, 2026. Batch and priority tiers, taxes, and subscription plans are not included. Claude Opus 5: The full 1M context window is billed at standard rates. Fast mode, a research preview on the Claude API, costs $10 input and $50 output per million tokens.
Good to know
- A legacy model that stays available. It was Claude Code's opus default before Claude Opus 5.5.
- Anthropic lists its retirement as not sooner than July 24, 2027.
- Adaptive thinking is on, and the default effort is high.
- Like every Claude model from 4.7 on, it uses Anthropic's newer tokenizer, which counts about 30% more tokens than earlier Claude models for the same text.
Cost
What typical work costs
Example token counts at Claude Opus 5’s published rates. On the agentic session, caching saves $7.75 against billing every token as ordinary input.
| Agentic coding session, 100K input, 400K written to cache, 2M read from cache, 50K output | $6.00 |
|---|---|
| Large one-off review, 150K input with no cache hits, 10K output | $1.00 |
| Output-heavy generation, 30K input, 80K output | $2.15 |
| A month of sessions, 110 sessions: 5 a day, 22 working days | $660.00 |
Prompt caching
How Anthropic bills cached tokens
Anthropic
Claude caches a prompt prefix up to a breakpoint. One top-level cache_control field places the breakpoint automatically and moves it as the conversation grows, or you can mark up to 4 blocks yourself. Claude Code manages caching for you.
A 5-minute cache write costs 1.25x the input price and a 1-hour write costs 2x. A cache hit costs 0.1x input on most models, 0.05x on Claude Opus 5.5, and 0.025x on Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1. Every hit restarts the cache lifetime at no charge.
Anthropic's rule of thumb: a 5-minute write pays for itself after one cache read, and a 1-hour write after two.
In Claude Code, the main conversation uses the 1-hour cache on a Claude subscription and the 5-minute cache with an API key. Each model has its own cache, so switching models starts over.
Source: Anthropic: Prompt caching
Claude Opus 5 compared
Claude Opus 5 vs Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 5 and Claude Opus 4.8 cost exactly the same, from $5 input to $0.50 cache hits. How Anthropic positions each, and what it now recommends instead.
Claude Opus 5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol
Claude Opus 5 lists 25% above GPT-5.6 Sol, and Anthropic's 1-hour cache writes stretch that to 43% on a coding session. Promotions, long context, successors.
Claude Opus 5.5 vs Claude Opus 5
Claude Opus 5.5 is 20% cheaper per token than Claude Opus 5, and cache hits cost 60% less. What that means for Claude Code sessions, and what stays the same.
Your own numbers
See what Claude Opus 5 really costs you.
everyaitoken reads your Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, and OpenRouter history on your Mac and prices every request at API rates, with what caching saved or cost. $9 once.