Claude API pricing in 2026: every model, current rates
Anthropic prices the Claude API per million tokens, with separate input and output rates. As of August 2026 the lineup spans four tiers, from Haiku for high-volume light work to Fable 5, the frontier model. All tiers support prompt caching (~90% off repeated input) and a 50% Batch API discount.
| Model | Input | Cached input | Output | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Fable 5 | $10.00 | $1.00 | $50.00 | 1M |
| Claude Opus 5 | $5.00 | $0.50 | $25.00 | 1M |
| Claude Sonnet 5 * | $2.00 | $0.20 | $10.00 | 1M |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | $1.00 | $0.10 | $5.00 | 200K |
Standard tier, short-context rates. Vendors publish separate Batch, Flex and Priority tiers and a higher long-context tier; this table shows the Standard short-context rate only.
Cache hits bill at 10% of input; Batch API takes 50% off both directions.
Which Claude model should you pay for?
Sonnet 5 is the default for production apps โ near-flagship quality at 1/5th the frontier price. Haiku 4.5 handles classification, extraction and routing at a fifth of Sonnet's price. Opus 5 and Fable 5 earn their premium on hard reasoning and agentic coding, where fewer retries can beat a cheaper per-token rate โ measure per-task cost, not per-token.
Three ways to cut your Claude bill
First, prompt caching: mark your stable system prompt with cache_control and repeated input bills at 10%. A chatbot with a 3K-token system prompt saves ~50% overall. Second, the Batch API: 50% off everything if you can wait for async results. Third, right-size the model โ run an eval on Haiku before assuming you need Sonnet. Details with worked math in our caching guide and Claude vs GPT comparison.
โ What would YOUR workload cost?Enter your token mix once โ compare all 30 models side by side, with caching and batch discounts.