Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6
Anthropic vs Anthropic · Prices checked 12 August 2026
The two are closer than they look: Claude Sonnet 4.6 at $6.60 per million tokens blended, Claude Opus 4.6 at $11.00, a 40 per cent difference. A single 100K-input, 10K-output job costs $0.450 on Claude Sonnet 4.6 against $0.750 on Claude Opus 4.6.
Of the 6 shared benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.6 takes 6. The widest gap is on LMArena Elo, where Claude Opus 4.6 leads by 26 points. Context is level at 1,000,000 tokens on each side. Claude Opus 4.6 was released Nov 2025; Claude Sonnet 4.6 Nov 2025.
Pricing and capacity
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.6 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / 1M tokens | $5.00 | $3.00 | 40% |
| Output / 1M tokens | $25.00 | $15.00 | 40% |
| Blended · 70/30calculated | $11.00 | $6.60 | 40% |
| Blended · 50/50calculated | $15.00 | $9.00 | 40% |
| Blended · 80/20calculated | $9.00 | $5.40 | 40% |
| Blended · 20/80calculated | $21.00 | $12.60 | 40% |
| Job cost · 100K + 10Kcalculated | $0.750 | $0.450 | 40% |
| Job cost · 1M + 100Kcalculated | $7.50 | $4.50 | 40% |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 1,000,000 | level |
Input and output rates are as published by each provider. Blended and job-cost rows are calculated comparison metrics, not published prices — how they are derived.
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU | 88% | 86% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| GPQA Diamond | 79% | 75% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| MATH | 92% | 89% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| HumanEval | 95% | 92% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 72% | 65% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| LMArena Elo | 1378 Elo | 1352 Elo | Claude Opus 4.6 |
Only suites both models report are listed, so a missing score is never shown as a loss. Figures are provider-published or from public leaderboards and are not independently re-run.
What each model is for
Claude Opus 4.6
Anthropic · Previous
The flagship of the Claude 4 generation. 1M-token context is GA, and Opus 4.6 leads on agentic coding, long-horizon reasoning and tool-use reliability.
- Agentic coding (Claude Code)
- 1M-token context, GA
- Tool use & function calling
- Multi-step reasoning
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Anthropic · Balanced
Frontier-grade Claude at one fifth of Opus pricing. The default workhorse for most production traffic on the Anthropic API.
- Best price/performance in the Claude family
- 1M-token context
- Strong vision
- Reliable function calling
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.6 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?
The two are closer than they look: Claude Sonnet 4.6 at $6.60 per million tokens blended, Claude Opus 4.6 at $11.00, a 40 per cent difference. A single 100K-input, 10K-output job costs $0.450 on Claude Sonnet 4.6 against $0.750 on Claude Opus 4.6. Blended cost weights input at 70% and output at 30%; price your own token split for an exact answer, since the cheaper model on a blended basis is not always cheaper for your workload.
Which performs better, Claude Opus 4.6 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Of the 6 shared benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.6 takes 6. The widest gap is on LMArena Elo, where Claude Opus 4.6 leads by 26 points. These are the figures each provider or public leaderboard publishes, not results we re-run, and a benchmark average can hide the specific behaviour your workload depends on.
Which has the larger context window, Claude Opus 4.6 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Context is level at 1,000,000 tokens on each side. The context window caps everything in a single request: prompt, retrieved documents, conversation history and the model’s own output all share it.
Can I compare Claude Opus 4.6 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 on my own numbers?
Yes. Open both in the side-by-side comparison tool to see every field at once, or use the token calculator to price your actual prompt and monthly request volume against each model. Both are free and need no sign-up.
Price it for your own workload
Related matchups
Terms used on this page
Prices and scores are recomputed on every deploy from the catalogue. Prices checked 12 August 2026.