Claude · Flagship · 1,000K context window

Claude Opus 5 pricing for chain of thought

$0.1400 per call at 3,000 input / 5,000 output tokens.

Per call

$0.1400

10K calls/mo

$1,400

Cache savings

90% off input

Batch savings

50% off all

Calculate your Claude Opus 5 costs

Adjust token counts, volume, and discount toggles to model your chain of thought spend. Prices verified daily against provider pricing pages.

Configure your usage

3,000
100100K
5,000
5050K
10,000
1001M

Estimated cost

Monthly cost
$1,400
10,000 calls/month
Cost per call$0.14
Daily cost$47
Input rate$5.00/MTok
Output rate$25.00/MTok
Analyze your real spend

Quick start

Call Claude Opus 5 with the Anthropic Python SDK:

from anthropic import Anthropic

client = Anthropic()
response = client.messages.create(
    model="claude-opus-5",
    max_tokens=5000,
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Your prompt here"}]
)
# Cost: ~$0.1400 per call at standard rates
# Input:  $5.00/MTok
# Output: $25.00/MTok

How Claude Opus 5 compares on cost

Per-call cost for all models scoring 50+ on chain of thought benchmarks. Hover for details.

Cheapest viable option: Claude Sonnet 5 at $0.0560/call (60% less, 90/100 quality).

What drives chain of thought cost

Reasoning tasks invert the usual ratio: the model produces far more tokens than it consumes, because the intermediate steps are the work. Output pricing dominates completely, and models that reason at length cost more than their headline rate suggests. Comparing reasoning models on input price is actively misleading; compare them on output.

For Claude Opus 5 specifically, that means output tokens cost 5.0x more than input, at $25.00 vs $5.00 per MTok. At this use case’s 3,000/5,000 token split, output accounts for 89% of the $0.1400 per-call cost.

Complete Claude Opus 5 pricing breakdown

Standard token rates

Direction$/MTokTokens per call
Input$5.003,000
Output$25.005,000

Prompt caching: 90% off input tokens

Caching drops input cost from $5.00 to $0.50/MTok. For repeated system prompts, that saves $0.0135 per call.

Batch API: 50% off all tokens

Submit requests asynchronously and receive 50% off all token costs. This works best for offline pipelines where latency requirements are flexible.

Monthly cost projections

Monthly volumeCost per callStandard monthlyCached monthlyYou save with caching
10,000 calls$0.1400$1,400$1,265$135
50,000 calls$0.1400$7,000$6,325$675
100,000 calls$0.1400$14,000$12,650$1,350
500,000 calls$0.1400$70,000$63,250$6,750
1,000,000 calls$0.1400$140,000$126,500$13,500

Claude Opus 5 quality benchmarks for chain of thought

Benchmark data for chain of thought is pending for Claude Opus 5. Test against your own evaluation suite before moving to production.

Performance across all task types

Claude Opus 5 scores by task type. Chain of Thought highlighted.

Task typeConfidence scoreRank out of 20

Confidence scores are a third-party benchmark snapshot from week 29 of 2026. This snapshot is 8 weeks old, so treat the scores as directional and validate against your own evals.

Alternative models for chain of thought

9 models score 80+ on chain of thought benchmarks, sorted by input rate. Cheapest: Claude Sonnet 5 (60% less, 90/100 quality).

ModelProviderInput $/MTokOutput $/MTokQualityPer callvs Claude
Claude Sonnet 5Claude$2.00$10.0090/100$0.056060% cheaper
GPT 5.6 TerraGPT$2.00$12.0082/100$0.066053% cheaper
Gemini 3.1 ProGemini$2.00$12.0090/100$0.066053% cheaper
GPT 5.4GPT$2.50$15.0080/100$0.082541% cheaper
Claude Sonnet 4.6Claude$3.00$15.0088/100$0.084040% cheaper
GPT 5.6 SolGPT$4.00$20.0096/100$0.112020% cheaper
Claude Opus 4.8Claude$5.00$25.0097/100$0.1400same cost
GPT 5.5GPT$5.00$30.0095/100$0.165018% more
Claude Fable 5Claude$10.00$50.0098/100$0.2800100% more

About Claude Opus 5

Provider

Claude

Tier

Flagship

Context

1,000K tokens

Released

Jul 2026

Other models from Claude

ModelTierInput $/MTokOutput $/MTokContext
Claude Opus 4.8Flagship$5.00$25.00200K
Claude Sonnet 4.6Mid-tier$3.00$15.00200K
Claude Haiku 4.5Fast / Budget$1.00$5.00200K
Claude Sonnet 5Mid-tier$2.00$10.00200K
Claude Fable 5.1Flagship$10.00$50.001,000K
Claude Fable 5Flagship$10.00$50.001,000K

You can compare Claude Opus 5 head-to-head against any other model on our model comparison pages, or track how pricing has changed over time on the pricing history tracker.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Claude Opus 5 cost for chain of thought per API call?

A typical chain of thought call using Claude Opus 5 costs about $0.1400 per call. This estimate uses 3,000 input tokens and 5,000 output tokens at standard rates. Standard rates are $5.00 per million input tokens and $25.00 per million output tokens.

Is Claude Opus 5 the best model for chain of thought?

Our benchmark data does not yet include a chain of thought ranking for Claude Opus 5. We recommend testing it against your own evaluation criteria before production usage.

What is the cheapest model for chain of thought with good quality?

The most affordable model for chain of thought above 80/100 quality is Claude Sonnet 5. It comes from Claude at $2.00 per million input tokens. Output costs $10.00 per million tokens with a quality score of 90/100. Switching from Claude Opus 5 to Claude Sonnet 5 saves about 60% per API call.

How can I reduce my Claude Opus 5 costs for chain of thought?

Three strategies lower Claude Opus 5 costs for this task type effectively. Prompt caching gives a 90% discount on input tokens when reusing system prompts. The batch API gives 50% off all tokens for asynchronous processing workloads. Prompt optimization reduces token counts through more concise instructions and context windows. Combining caching with batching brings your cost from $0.1400 to about $0.007000 per call.

How does Claude Opus 5 pricing compare to other Claude models?

Claude has 6 other models alongside Claude Opus 5 today: Claude Opus 4.8 at $5.00/$25.00 per million tokens (flagship), Claude Sonnet 4.6 at $3.00/$15.00 per million tokens (mid-tier), Claude Haiku 4.5 at $1.00/$5.00 per million tokens (fast / budget), Claude Sonnet 5 at $2.00/$10.00 per million tokens (mid-tier), Claude Fable 5.1 at $10.00/$50.00 per million tokens (flagship), Claude Fable 5 at $10.00/$50.00 per million tokens (flagship). The right choice depends on whether your chain of thought workload prioritizes quality, cost, or speed.

What context window does Claude Opus 5 support?

Claude Opus 5 supports a context window of 1,000K tokens per API call. This sets the maximum combined length of your input prompt and generated response. For chain of thought, typical calls use 3,000 input and 5,000 output tokens. That is well within this limit, leaving room for longer prompts or multi-turn conversations.

Track what you spend on AI

This calculator estimates costs based on published rates only. Connect your API usage to see where your money goes and which models drive your spend.