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Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5
A detailed comparison of Claude Opus 4.6 (Anthropic) and Claude Sonnet 4.5 (Anthropic) across pricing, performance, and features.
Pricing Comparison
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.6 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / 1M tokens | $5.00 | $3.00 | -40% |
| Output / 1M tokens | $25.00 | $15.00 | -40% |
| Context window | 200K | 200K | — |
| Max output | 32K | 16K | — |
Benchmark Comparison
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 89.5% | 84.5% |
| HumanEval | 95% | 93% |
| GPQA | 75.5% | 68.2% |
Capabilities
| Capability | Claude Opus 4.6 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| code | ✓ | ✓ |
| reasoning | ✓ | ✓ |
| text | ✓ | ✓ |
| tool-use | ✓ | ✓ |
| vision | ✓ | ✓ |
Claude Opus 4.6 Strengths
- ✓Best-in-class agentic tool use and coding
- ✓1M context available in beta (Tier 4)
- ✓Strong at following complex multi-step instructions
Claude Opus 4.6 Weaknesses
- ✗Premium pricing ($10/$37.50 at 1M context)
- ✗1M context beta is Tier 4 only
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Strengths
- ✓Well-tested and stable
- ✓Strong coding and analysis
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Weaknesses
- ✗Superseded by Sonnet 4.6
- ✗Same price as the newer model
Quick Verdict
Best value: Claude Sonnet 4.5 is the more affordable option at $3/$15 per 1M tokens.
Higher benchmarks: Claude Opus 4.6 scores higher on average across available benchmarks (86.7% avg).
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.5 if cost matters most. Choose Claude Opus 4.6 if you need the best possible quality for complex tasks.