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Claude Sonnet 5 API Pricing & Cost Calculator

Sonnet 5 is the new value-pick coding workhorse: same capability tier as Sonnet 4.6 at a meaningful discount. With 90% cache and a 50% batch API, long agentic loops stay affordable.

Claude Sonnet 5 succeeds Sonnet 4.6 as Anthropic's workhorse coding and agentic model, sitting between Claude Opus 5 and the rest of the Claude lineup.

By TechCompare · Updated

Input tokens
100,000
per request
Output tokens
5,000
per request
Volume
100 / monthly
Standard API

Calculator

Cost Comparison

Based on 100,000 input tokens (50% cached), 5,000 output tokens, and 100 requests.Prices are fetched live from OpenRouter and may include temporary promotional discounts not accounted for in our article and comparison figures.

Same 100,000 in / 5,000 out (50% cached) scenario, pre-loaded. Adjust tokens, caching, or swap models.
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How this is calculated

Claude Sonnet 5 is priced at $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens - a third cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.6's $3.00/$15.00 across the board. It supports a 90% prompt caching discount ($0.20 per million) and a 50% batch discount ($1.00 per million inputs, $5.00 per million outputs) via Anthropic's Message Batches API.

Verdict

Sonnet 5 lands at $2/M input and $10/M output, a third cheaper than Sonnet 4.6's $3/$15 on both rows, with cached input at $0.20/M (90% discount) and batch at $1/M input and $5/M output (50% discount). The case for migrating from 4.6 to 5 is the simplest in the lineup: same lineage, same tool-use ergonomics, lower price on every row, and (per Anthropic) improved capability. Long agentic coding loops see both the cached-input rate drop and the per-output cost drop, so the per-call total falls roughly a third without changing the workflow.

More API Standalones scenarios

GPT-5.5 Pricing
Single-model gpt-5.5 cost estimate
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GPT-5.4 Pricing
Single-model gpt-5.4 cost estimate
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Claude Opus 4.8 Pricing
Single-model claude-opus-4.8 cost estimate
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Related guides

BPE tokenization explained
How tokenizers chunk text into the units VRAM serves.
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Context window explained
How a model context window caps prompt size.
View guide ➜

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5 cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Yes, notably cheaper. Sonnet 5 costs $2.00/$10.00 per million vs Sonnet 4.6's $3.00/$15.00 - a ~33% reduction across the board, with the same 90% cache and 50% batch discounts.
How much does Claude Sonnet 5 cost per million output tokens?
Claude Sonnet 5 charges $10.00 per million output tokens at standard pricing, 33% cheaper than Sonnet 4.6's $15/M. With the 50% batch discount, that drops to $5.00 per million. The 90% prompt caching discount brings cached input to $0.20 per million, useful for high-volume agentic and coding workloads.
Is Claude Sonnet 5 cheaper than Sonnet 4.6?
Yes across the board. Sonnet 5 is $2/M input and $10/M output, versus Sonnet 4.6's $3/$15. The cache discount still applies at 90%, dropping cached input to $0.20/M (off $2) versus Sonnet 4.6's $0.30/M. Both share 50% batch and 1M context. Sonnet 5 is a strict price-and-capability upgrade if you're already on Sonnet 4.6.

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