LLM Reference

Claude 3 Opus vs Claude Opus 4.6

Claude 3 Opus (2024) and Claude Opus 4.6 (2026) are frontier-tier reasoning models from Anthropic. Claude 3 Opus 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 20.6 pts. On pricing, Claude Opus 4.6 costs $5/1M input tokens versus $7.50/1M for the alternative. This comparison covers specs, pricing, API access, capabilities, benchmarks, input and output token costs, and production fit for coding and agent workloads.

Claude Opus 4.6 is ~50% cheaper at $5/1M; pay for Claude 3 Opus only for coding workflow support.

Decision scorecard

Local evidence first
SignalClaude 3 OpusClaude Opus 4.6
Best forreasoning-heavy apps, multimodal apps, and provider-routed productionreasoning-heavy apps, multimodal apps, and tool-calling agents
Decision fitCoding, RAG, and AgentsCoding, RAG, and Agents
Context window200k1m
Cheapest output$37.50/1M tokens$25/1M tokens
Provider routes4 tracked6 tracked
Shared benchmarks5 sharedMMLU PRO leader

Decision tradeoffs

Choose Claude 3 Opus when...
  • Local decision data tags Claude 3 Opus for Coding, RAG, and Agents.
Choose Claude Opus 4.6 when...
  • Claude Opus 4.6 holds a shared-benchmark lead on MMLU PRO, ahead by 20.6 points.
  • Claude Opus 4.6 has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
  • Claude Opus 4.6 has the lower cheapest tracked output price at $25/1M tokens.
  • Claude Opus 4.6 has broader tracked provider coverage for fallback and route flexibility.
  • Claude Opus 4.6 uniquely exposes JSON / Tool use in local model data.

Monthly cost at traffic

Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.

Lower estimate Claude Opus 4.6

Claude 3 Opus

$15,375

Cheapest tracked route/tier: Replicate API

Claude Opus 4.6

$10,250

Cheapest tracked route/tier: Anthropic

Estimated monthly gap: $5,125. Batch, cache, alternate speed tiers, and negotiated pricing are excluded from this local estimate.

Switch friction

Claude 3 Opus -> Claude Opus 4.6
Local recipe
  • Provider overlap exists on Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, and GCP Vertex AI; start route-level A/B tests there.
  • Claude Opus 4.6 is $12.50/1M tokens lower on cheapest tracked output pricing before cache, batch, or negotiated discounts.
  • Claude Opus 4.6 adds JSON / Tool use in local capability data.
  • Use this scaffold for expensive reasoning or analysis workloads that may benefit from the current Opus line.
  • Lead with whether the workload is quality-bound enough to justify Opus-tier output pricing.
  • Compare benchmark rank and provider availability before claiming a default upgrade.
Review migration path
Claude Opus 4.6 -> Claude 3 Opus
  • Provider overlap exists on AWS Bedrock, GCP Vertex AI, and Anthropic; start route-level A/B tests there.
  • Claude 3 Opus is $12.50/1M tokens higher on cheapest tracked output pricing, so quality gains need to justify the spend.
  • Check replacement coverage for JSON / Tool use before moving production traffic.

Specs

Specification
Released2024-03-042026-02-05
Context window200k1m
Parameters2T—
ArchitectureDecoder OnlyDecoder Only
LicenseProprietaryProprietary
OpennessProprietaryProprietary
WeightsNot releasedNot released
CodeUnknownUnknown
Commercial useCommercial use: conditionalCommercial use: conditional
Knowledge cutoff2023-082025-12

Pricing and availability

Pricing attributeClaude 3 OpusClaude Opus 4.6
Input price$7.50/1M tokens$5/1M tokens
Output price$37.50/1M tokens$25/1M tokens
Providers
AWS BedrockGCP Vertex AIAnthropicReplicate API
AnthropicAWS BedrockGCP Vertex AIMicrosoft FoundryOpenRouterVercel AI Gateway

Capabilities

CapabilityClaude 3 OpusClaude Opus 4.6
VisionYesYes
MultimodalYesYes
ReasoningYesYes
JSON / Tool useNoYes
Structured outputsYesYes
Code executionYesYes
IDE integrationNoNo
Computer useNoNo
Parallel agentsNoNo

Benchmarks

BenchmarkClaude 3 OpusClaude Opus 4.6
MMLU PRO68.589.1
Massive Multi-discipline Multimodal Understanding59.476.5
HumanEval84.995.0
Chatbot Arena1248.01501.0
Massive Multitask Language Understanding88.791.1

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Last reviewed: 2026-07-26. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.