Anthropic Claude API Pricing 2026
Claude API pricing varies by model tier. Sonnet models offer the best balance of capability and cost. Opus is the premium option for maximum quality. Haiku is the budget choice for high-volume, simpler tasks.
| Model | Context Window | Input / 1M Tokens | Output / 1M Tokens | Strengths |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude 4 Sonnet | 200K tokens | $3.00 | $15.00 | Best overall — documents, analysis, coding, writing |
| Claude 4 Opus | 200K tokens | $15.00 | $75.00 | Maximum capability, complex reasoning, research |
| Claude 3.5 Sonnet | 200K tokens | $3.00 | $15.00 | Excellent value — comparable quality to Claude 4 Sonnet at same price |
| Claude 3.5 Haiku | 200K tokens | $0.80 | $4.00 | Fast, affordable, great for classification & extraction |
How to Use This Calculator
- Select your model: Pricing auto-fills when you choose a Claude model
- Enter token counts: Average input (prompt + context) and output tokens per call
- Set request volume: How many API calls you make daily
- Read results: Instantly see daily, monthly, and annual cost projections
Real-World Usage Examples
Example 1: Long Document Analysis (200 docs/day)
Model: Claude 3.5 Sonnet (10,000 in / 2,000 out tokens)
Requests/day: 200 document analyses
Daily cost: 200 × [(10000/1M × $3.00) + (2000/1M × $15.00)] = $120.00/day
Monthly cost: $3,600/month
Cost per document: $0.60
Example 2: Customer Support Bot (5,000 tickets/day)
Model: Claude 3.5 Haiku (500 in / 150 out tokens)
Requests/day: 5,000 support tickets
Daily cost: 5,000 × [(500/1M × $0.80) + (150/1M × $4.00)] = $5.80/day
Monthly cost: $174/month
Cost per ticket: $0.00116 (0.1 cents)
Example 3: Research Assistant (100 queries/day)
Model: Claude 4 Opus (50,000 in / 5,000 out tokens)
Requests/day: 100 deep research queries
Daily cost: 100 × [(50000/1M × $15.00) + (5000/1M × $75.00)] = $1,125.00/day
Monthly cost: $33,750/month
Note: Use Sonnet for most tasks; reserve Opus for truly complex reasoning.
Claude vs GPT-4o Cost Comparison
| Task | Claude 3.5 Sonnet Cost | GPT-4o Cost | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000-word email response | $0.018 | $0.0175 | Tie (almost identical) |
| 10-page document analysis | $0.60 | $0.65 | Claude (better at documents) |
| Code review (500 lines) | $0.027 | $0.0275 | Tie |
| High-volume classification (1M) | $3.20 (Haiku) | $0.75 (GPT-4o mini) | GPT-4o mini (cheaper) |
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Claude charge for cached tokens?
Yes. Anthropic offers prompt caching at 10% of the standard input price. If you reuse the same long context across many requests, caching can reduce input costs by up to 90%. For example, a 10K-token cached prompt would cost $0.003 per request instead of $0.03.
What is Claude's API rate limit?
Rate limits vary by plan. Free tier: 5 requests/minute, 10K tokens/minute. Team plans: 50–200 RPM. Enterprise: customizable limits. Use our calculator with burst limits to estimate queuing costs.
How does Claude's 200K context window affect cost?
You pay only for tokens you use, not the full context window. A 50K-token prompt costs 50K tokens, not 200K. However, the larger context enables more comprehensive responses and reduces the need for follow-up requests, often making Claude more cost-efficient overall despite higher per-token rates.