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Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Claude Opus 4.6
A detailed comparison of Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Anthropic) and Claude Opus 4.6 (Anthropic) across pricing, performance, and features.
Pricing Comparison
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Claude Opus 4.6 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / 1M tokens | $3.00 | $5.00 | +67% |
| Output / 1M tokens | $15.00 | $25.00 | +67% |
| Context window | 200K | 200K | — |
| Max output | 16K | 32K | — |
Benchmark Comparison
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86% | 89.5% |
| HumanEval | 94% | 95% |
| GPQA | 70% | 75.5% |
Capabilities
| Capability | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| code | ✓ | ✓ |
| reasoning | ✓ | ✓ |
| text | ✓ | ✓ |
| tool-use | ✓ | ✓ |
| vision | ✓ | ✓ |
Claude Sonnet 4.6 Strengths
- ✓Opus 4.5 quality at 1/5th the cost
- ✓Best value for production workloads
- ✓1M context in beta
Claude Sonnet 4.6 Weaknesses
- ✗Long context pricing doubles above 200K
- ✗Slightly below Opus 4.6 on hardest tasks
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
Quick Verdict
Best value: Claude Sonnet 4.6 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 4.6 if cost matters most. Choose Claude Opus 4.6 if you need the best possible quality for complex tasks.