Claude Opus 4
Anthropic · released May 22, 2025
- Type
- Closed
- Input
- $15.00
- Output
- $75.00
- Cached
- None held
List price · per 1M tokens · Anthropic at 200K context · machine-readable source ↗
Our take
Written Sep 1, 2026Claude Opus 4 is Anthropic's flagship reasoning system for complex coding, writing and agentic tasks. It handles up to 200,000 tokens in a single request and scores strongly on real-world software engineering benchmarks, though it is priced at a premium tier with no cheaper alternatives.
Choose this for complex software engineering with tools, long-document analysis at large scale, or creative writing and instruction-following where human preference scores matter. It suits agentic workflows needing end-to-end task completion. Skip it if cost at scale is a constraint, if you need self-hosting or open weights, or if pure maths performance is the priority.
The case for it
- Resolves 73.2% of real GitHub issues end-to-end on SWE-bench Verified with tools.
- Broad arena strength across coding, hard prompts, creative writing and instruction following — all measured 2026-08-27.
- 200,000-token request limit, double the 100K class and over six times the 32K class.
- Same price across all three providers, so there is no arbitrage hunt.
The case against it
- Arena maths score trails its own coding result by 60.5 points within the same evaluation window.
- Expensive at scale with no cheaper provider alternative; throughput only verified on one of three providers.
- Proprietary weights with no self-hosting option and parameter count undisclosed.
How good is it?
EverydayGeneral questions and everyday reasoning
Arena Text (overall)85th of 168 · 1414
Also on this board: 1426 (Sep 25, 2026). Read the pair, not the higher one.
CodingWriting and fixing code on its own
Arena Coding78th of 168 · 1465
Also on this board: 1498 (Sep 25, 2026). Read the pair, not the higher one.
AgenticPlanning, calling tools, staying on task
Not yet scored on Arena Agent. It is on SWE-bench Verified, in 6th of 42 with 73.2.
WritingDrafting and rewriting prose
Arena Creative Writing52nd of 168 · 1417
Arena Creative Writing is the only board that has scored it for this.
Also on this board: 1432 (Sep 25, 2026). Read the pair, not the higher one.
These tests check whether a model follows instructions — a precondition for all the work above, but not a measure of how well that work is done.
Every published score for this model8 scoresEvery figure we hold, from 8 boards, with who ran it and a link to the source — including the boards no rating above is built on.
Where to rent it
Prices checked between 9 days and 11 days ago — each listing carries its own date.
Anthropic, direct
The lab is also the cheapest we hold. The strip above and this offer are the same one, so nothing on this page undercuts Anthropic on 200K of context.
- per 1M tokens
- $15.00 in / $75.00 out
- Context served
- 200K
- Throughput
- Not measured
| Provider | In / out per 1M tokens | Context | Throughput | Trains on prompts | Logs prompts | Zero retention |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenRouterOpenRouter's own listing | $15.00 / $75.00checked 10 days ago | 200K | not measured | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| Google Vertex AIThrough OpenRouter | $15.00 / $75.00checked 11 days ago | 200K32K max reply | not measured | No | No | Unknown |
| AnthropicDirect | $15.00 / $75.00checked 9 days ago | 200K32K max reply | not measured | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
OpenRouter
Google Vertex AIAcross the 3 listings we hold: 1 says it does not train on prompts, 0 say they do and 2 do not say. 0 appear in the zero-retention registry we check; the rest are unknown to us.
What each host's API supports
From the parameter list each endpoint publishes. Streaming is omitted: nothing we hold reports it, for any model.
| Provider | Tool calling | JSON output | Strict schema |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenRouterOpenRouter's own listing | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Google Vertex AIThrough OpenRouter | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| AnthropicDirect |
Tool calling: 2 of 3 listings say yes, 1 publishes no parameter list. JSON output: 0 of 3 listings say yes, 2 say no, 1 publishes no parameter list. Strict schema: 0 of 3 listings say yes, 2 say no, 1 publishes no parameter list.
Models people weigh against Claude Opus 4
When we formed this view
Recent changes
What moved
first indexed by our pipelineEach date is the day we first saw the change, or the day the maker announced it.
What we do not know about this model yet
- 1 of 3 listings publishes no parameter list, so what its API accepts is unknown to us.
- Nothing we hold says whether an endpoint streams, so we do not show it either way.
- 2 of 3 listings do not say whether they train on prompts.
- We hold no batch or off-peak rate for any of its listings.
Licence and identifiers
What the licence allowsWe hold no licence record for this model. Inside are the identifiers you need to pull it — its Hugging Face repo where we have one, our slug and a machine-readable card.
Licence
We hold no licence record for this model, and no record of published weights either — so we can neither summarise its terms nor point you at the weights.
Identifiers
- Takes in, gives back
- Text, images and documents in, text out
- Catalogue slug
- anthropic-claude-opus-4