Model comparison
Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Sonnet 5
Compare Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Sonnet 5 API pricing: input/output token costs, cache pricing, context windows, workload estimates, and routing fit.
Claude Opus 4.8
anthropic · claude-opus-4-8
- Input
- $5
- Output
- $25
- Context
- 1M
Claude Sonnet 5
anthropic · claude-sonnet-5
- Input
- $2
- Output
- $10
- Context
- 1M
Quick take
Claude Sonnet 5 has the lower input price at $2 per 1M input tokens. Claude Sonnet 5 is cheaper for the example blended workload below. Claude Opus 4.8 has the larger context window at 1M tokens.
Choose Claude Opus 4.8 if...
- Claude Opus 4.8 is a reasonable pick when its provider, latency, or integration path fits your stack better.
Choose Claude Sonnet 5 if...
- Claude Sonnet 5 is the better default for cost-sensitive traffic and repeated high-volume calls.
Example workload cost
Estimates use input tokens plus 20% output tokens. They exclude provider discounts, cache hits, and tool/search surcharges.
| Workload | Claude Opus 4.8 | Claude Sonnet 5 | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M input + 200K output | $10.00 | $4.00 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| 10M input + 2M output | $100.00 | $40.00 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| 100M input + 20M output | $1,000.00 | $400.00 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
Context, output, and capability fit
Claude Opus 4.8 provides the larger context window. Check max output separately when the task needs long reports, code generation, or full-document rewrites.
- Claude Opus 4.8 max output
- 128K
- Claude Sonnet 5 max output
- 128K
- Claude Opus 4.8 features
- prompt caching, function calling, vision
- Claude Sonnet 5 features
- prompt caching, function calling, vision
Risk notes for Claude Opus 4.8
- High output price: cap max tokens for verbose generation workloads.
Risk notes for Claude Sonnet 5
- No major capability risk is flagged in this snapshot, but provider pages should still be verified before production routing.
Routing tags
frontierpremiumreasoningcodingagentslong-contextmultimodalcache-friendlyragenterprise-rag