THE TICKER · HEAD-TO-HEAD · CHECKED DAILY · LAST CHANGE 2026-07-11
CLAUDE OPUS 4.8 VS CLAUDE SONNET 5
Anthropic vs Anthropic, in USD per million tokens, verified daily against public list prices. Same jobs, both meters running.
Claude Opus 4.8 costs 2.5x more than Claude Sonnet 5 for the same job — a 1,000-token prompt with a 3,000-token reply runs $0.08 vs $0.03. At 1,000 runs a day, that gap is $1,440.00 a month for identical traffic.
SIDE BY SIDE
| Claude Opus 4.8 → | Claude Sonnet 5 → | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Input / MTok | $5.00 | $2.00 |
| Output / MTok | $25.00 | $10.00 |
| Output multiple | 5.0x | 5.0x |
| 1K prompt + 3K reply | $0.08 | $0.03 |
SAME JOB, BOTH BILLS
| Scenario | Claude Opus 4.8 | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| A typical prompt | $0.02 | $0.0096 | 2.5x |
| A 20-turn conversation | $0.12 | $0.05 | 2.5x |
| Summarizing a 10-page document | $0.12 | $0.05 | 2.5x |
| One agent run | $0.31 | $0.12 | 2.5x |
| A code review request | $0.10 | $0.04 | 2.5x |
Output sizes use the same editorial ratios as the Burn Calculator. Estimates, not invoices — and price is not a benchmark: the cheaper model is only a bargain if it does the job.
SETTLE IT WITH YOUR OWN PROMPT
Paste a real prompt into the Burn Calculator and see what it costs on Claude Opus 4.8, Claude Sonnet 5 and the other 10 models on the board — plus how much of it is waste either way.