tokevenClaude · Mid-tier · 200K context window
Claude Sonnet 4.6 pricing for chain of thought
$0.0840 per call at 3,000 input / 5,000 output tokens.
Per call
$0.0840
10K calls/mo
$840
Cache savings
90% off input
Batch savings
50% off all
Calculate your Claude Sonnet 4.6 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
Estimated cost
Quick start
Call Claude Sonnet 4.6 with the Anthropic Python SDK:
from anthropic import Anthropic
client = Anthropic()
response = client.messages.create(
model="claude-sonnet-4-6",
max_tokens=5000,
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Your prompt here"}]
)
# Cost: ~$0.0840 per call at standard rates
# Input: $3.00/MTok
# Output: $15.00/MTokHow Claude Sonnet 4.6 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 (33% 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 Sonnet 4.6 specifically, that means output tokens cost 5.0x more than input, at $15.00 vs $3.00 per MTok. At this use case’s 3,000/5,000 token split, output accounts for 89% of the $0.0840 per-call cost.
Complete Claude Sonnet 4.6 pricing breakdown
Standard token rates
| Direction | $/MTok | Tokens per call |
|---|---|---|
| Input | $3.00 | 3,000 |
| Output | $15.00 | 5,000 |
Prompt caching: 90% off input tokens
Caching drops input cost from $3.00 to $0.30/MTok. For repeated system prompts, that saves $0.008100 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 volume | Cost per call | Standard monthly | Cached monthly | You save with caching |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 calls | $0.0840 | $840 | $759 | $81 |
| 50,000 calls | $0.0840 | $4,200 | $3,795 | $405 |
| 100,000 calls | $0.0840 | $8,400 | $7,590 | $810 |
| 500,000 calls | $0.0840 | $42,000 | $37,950 | $4,050 |
| 1,000,000 calls | $0.0840 | $84,000 | $75,900 | $8,100 |
Claude Sonnet 4.6 quality benchmarks for chain of thought
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is a solid pick for chain of thought
Scores 88/100 (rank #3 of 20). Good balance of quality and cost for chain of thought.
Top-ranked: Claude Fable 5 (98/100) at $0.2800/call
Performance across all task types
Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores by task type. Chain of Thought highlighted.
| Task type | Confidence score | Rank out of 20 |
|---|---|---|
| Code Review | 95/100 | #1 |
| Code Generation | 92/100 | #2 |
| Summarization | 90/100 | #2 |
| Reasoning(current page) | 88/100 | #3 |
| Q&A | 88/100 | #3 |
| Extraction | 86/100 | #3 |
| Creative Writing | 85/100 | #3 |
| Classification | 84/100 | #4 |
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
8 models score 80+ on chain of thought benchmarks, sorted by input rate. Cheapest: Claude Sonnet 5 (33% less, 90/100 quality).
| Model | Provider | Input $/MTok | Output $/MTok | Quality | Per call | vs Claude |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Claude | $2.00 | $10.00 | 90/100 | $0.0560 | 33% cheaper |
| GPT 5.6 Terra | GPT | $2.00 | $12.00 | 82/100 | $0.0660 | 21% cheaper |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | Gemini | $2.00 | $12.00 | 90/100 | $0.0660 | 21% cheaper |
| GPT 5.4 | GPT | $2.50 | $15.00 | 80/100 | $0.0825 | 2% cheaper |
| GPT 5.6 Sol | GPT | $4.00 | $20.00 | 96/100 | $0.1120 | 33% more |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | Claude | $5.00 | $25.00 | 97/100 | $0.1400 | 67% more |
| GPT 5.5 | GPT | $5.00 | $30.00 | 95/100 | $0.1650 | 96% more |
| Claude Fable 5 | Claude | $10.00 | $50.00 | 98/100 | $0.2800 | 233% more |
About Claude Sonnet 4.6
Provider
Claude
Tier
Mid-tier
Context
200K tokens
Released
May 2026
Other models from Claude
| Model | Tier | Input $/MTok | Output $/MTok | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4.8 | Flagship | $5.00 | $25.00 | 200K |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Fast / Budget | $1.00 | $5.00 | 200K |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Mid-tier | $2.00 | $10.00 | 200K |
| Claude Opus 5 | Flagship | $5.00 | $25.00 | 1,000K |
| Claude Fable 5.1 | Flagship | $10.00 | $50.00 | 1,000K |
| Claude Fable 5 | Flagship | $10.00 | $50.00 | 1,000K |
You can compare Claude Sonnet 4.6 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.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 pricing for other use cases
See how Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs change across different workload types.
Code Generation
$0.0660/call
Unit Test Generation
$0.0840/call
SQL Generation
$0.0195/call
API Generation
$0.0990/call
Code Refactoring
$0.0720/call
Code Review
$0.0450/call
PR Review
$0.0690/call
Security Review
$0.0555/call
Bug Detection
$0.0450/call
Document Summarization
$0.0450/call
PDF Summarization
$0.0675/call
Meeting Notes
$0.0540/call
Email Summarization
$0.0165/call
Chatbot
$0.0210/call
RAG Pipeline
$0.0405/call
Customer Support Bot
$0.0240/call
FAQ Bot
$0.0165/call
Data Extraction
$0.0270/call
JSON Extraction
$0.0210/call
Invoice Parsing
$0.0150/call
Resume Parsing
$0.0195/call
Legal Analysis
$0.0900/call
Math Reasoning
$0.0495/call
Financial Analysis
$0.0840/call
Content Moderation
$0.003000/call
Sentiment Analysis
$0.003000/call
Categorization
$0.004650/call
Intent Detection
$0.002400/call
Copywriting
$0.0315/call
Blog Writing
$0.1230/call
Marketing Copy
$0.0474/call
Product Descriptions
$0.0240/call
Related pages
Frequently asked questions
How much does Claude Sonnet 4.6 cost for chain of thought per API call?
A typical chain of thought call using Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs about $0.0840 per call. This estimate uses 3,000 input tokens and 5,000 output tokens at standard rates. Standard rates are $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens.
Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 the best model for chain of thought?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores 88 out of 100 on chain of thought benchmarks overall. It ranks #3 across all 20 models in our cross-provider registry. The highest-ranked model for this task is Claude Fable 5 from Claude. That model scores 98/100 on this task type. 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.
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 Sonnet 4.6 to Claude Sonnet 5 saves about 33% per API call.
How can I reduce my Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs for chain of thought?
Three strategies lower Claude Sonnet 4.6 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 $0.0840 to about $0.004200 per call.
How does Claude Sonnet 4.6 pricing compare to other Claude models?
Claude has 6 other models alongside Claude Sonnet 4.6 today: Claude Opus 4.8 at $5.00/$25.00 per million tokens (flagship), 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 Opus 5 at $5.00/$25.00 per million tokens (flagship), 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 Sonnet 4.6 support?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 supports a context window of 200K 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.
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