Claude 3.7 Sonnet vs Claude Opus 4.6
Claude 3.7 Sonnet (2024) and Claude Opus 4.6 (2026) are frontier-tier reasoning models from Anthropic. Claude 3.7 Sonnet ships a 200K-token context window, while Claude Opus 4.6 ships a 1M-token context window. On MMLU PRO, Claude Opus 4.6 leads by 8.8 pts. On pricing, Claude 3.7 Sonnet costs $3/1M input tokens versus $5/1M for the alternative. This comparison covers specs, pricing, capabilities, benchmarks, provider availability, and production fit.
Claude 3.7 Sonnet is ~67% cheaper at $3/1M; pay for Claude Opus 4.6 only for coding workflow support.
Specs
| Released | 2024-03-04 | 2026-02-05 |
| Context window | 200K | 1M |
| Parameters | — | — |
| Architecture | decoder only | decoder only |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2024-11 | 2025-12 |
Pricing and availability
| Claude 3.7 Sonnet | Claude Opus 4.6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $3/1M tokens | $5/1M tokens |
| Output price | $15/1M tokens | $25/1M tokens |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Claude 3.7 Sonnet | Claude Opus 4.6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | ||
| Multimodal | ||
| Reasoning | ||
| Function calling | ||
| Tool use | ||
| Structured outputs | ||
| Code execution |
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude 3.7 Sonnet | Claude Opus 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU PRO | 80.3 | 89.1 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 70.3 | 80.8 |
Deep dive
On shared benchmark coverage, MMLU PRO has Claude 3.7 Sonnet at 80.3 and Claude Opus 4.6 at 89.1, with Claude Opus 4.6 ahead by 8.8 points; SWE-bench Verified has Claude 3.7 Sonnet at 70.3 and Claude Opus 4.6 at 80.8, with Claude Opus 4.6 ahead by 10.5 points. The largest visible gap is 10.5 points on SWE-bench Verified, which matters most when that benchmark mirrors your workload. Treat isolated benchmark wins as directional, because provider routing, prompt style, and tool access can move real application results.
The capability footprint is close: both models cover vision, multimodal input, reasoning mode, function calling, and tool use. That makes context budget, benchmark fit, and provider maturity more important than a simple checklist. If your application depends on one integration detail, verify it against the provider route you plan to use, not just the base model listing.
For cost, Claude 3.7 Sonnet lists $3/1M input and $15/1M output tokens, while Claude Opus 4.6 lists $5/1M input and $25/1M output tokens on the cheapest tracked provider. A 70/30 input-output blend puts Claude 3.7 Sonnet lower by about $4.4 per million blended tokens. Availability is 6 providers versus 4, so concentration risk also matters.
Choose Claude 3.7 Sonnet when coding workflow support, lower input-token cost, and broader provider choice are central to the workload. Choose Claude Opus 4.6 when coding workflow support and larger context windows are more important. For production, rerun your own prompts through the exact provider, region, and tool stack you plan to ship.
FAQ
Which has a larger context window, Claude 3.7 Sonnet or Claude Opus 4.6?
Claude Opus 4.6 supports 1M tokens, while Claude 3.7 Sonnet supports 200K tokens. That gap matters most for long documents, large codebases, retrieval-heavy agents, and conversations where earlier context must remain visible.
Which is cheaper, Claude 3.7 Sonnet or Claude Opus 4.6?
Claude 3.7 Sonnet is cheaper on tracked token pricing. Claude 3.7 Sonnet costs $3/1M input and $15/1M output tokens. Claude Opus 4.6 costs $5/1M input and $25/1M output tokens. Provider discounts or batch pricing can still change the final bill.
Is Claude 3.7 Sonnet or Claude Opus 4.6 open source?
Claude 3.7 Sonnet is listed under Proprietary. Claude Opus 4.6 is listed under Proprietary. License labels affect whether you can self-host, redistribute weights, or rely only on hosted APIs, so confirm the upstream license before deployment.
Which is better for vision, Claude 3.7 Sonnet or Claude Opus 4.6?
Both Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Opus 4.6 expose vision. The better choice depends on benchmark fit, context budget, pricing, and whether your provider route exposes the same capability surface.
Which is better for multimodal input, Claude 3.7 Sonnet or Claude Opus 4.6?
Both Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Opus 4.6 expose multimodal input. The better choice depends on benchmark fit, context budget, pricing, and whether your provider route exposes the same capability surface.
Where can I run Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Opus 4.6?
Claude 3.7 Sonnet is available on Snowflake Cortex, GCP Vertex AI, Replicate API, OpenRouter, and AWS Bedrock. Claude Opus 4.6 is available on OpenRouter, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, and GCP Vertex AI. Provider coverage can affect latency, region availability, compliance posture, and fallback options.
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Last reviewed: 2026-04-24. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.