LLM Reference

Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6

Claude Opus 4.5 (2025) and Claude Opus 4.6 (2026) are frontier-tier reasoning models from Anthropic. Claude Opus 4.5 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 0.2 pts. On pricing, both list $5/1M input and $25/1M output tokens on the cheapest tracked route. 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 fits 5x more tokens; pick it for long-context work and Claude Opus 4.5 for tighter calls.

Decision scorecard

Local evidence first
SignalClaude Opus 4.5Claude Opus 4.6
Best forreasoning-heavy apps, multimodal apps, and tool-calling agentsreasoning-heavy apps, multimodal apps, and tool-calling agents
Decision fitCoding, RAG, and AgentsCoding, RAG, and Agents
Context window200k1m
Cheapest output$25/1M tokens$25/1M tokens
Provider routes6 tracked6 tracked
Shared benchmarks9 sharedMMLU PRO leader

Decision tradeoffs

Choose Claude Opus 4.5 when...
  • Claude Opus 4.5 holds a shared-benchmark lead on SWE-bench Verified, ahead by 0.1 points.
  • Local decision data tags Claude Opus 4.5 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 0.2 points.
  • Claude Opus 4.6 has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
  • Local decision data tags Claude Opus 4.6 for Coding, RAG, and Agents.

Monthly cost at traffic

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

Same estimate Tie

Claude Opus 4.5

$10,250

Cheapest tracked route/tier: Microsoft Foundry

Claude Opus 4.6

$10,250

Cheapest tracked route/tier: Anthropic

Estimated monthly gap: $0.00. Batch, cache, alternate speed tiers, and negotiated pricing are excluded from this local estimate.

Switch friction

Claude Opus 4.5 -> Claude Opus 4.6
  • Provider overlap exists on Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, and GCP Vertex AI; start route-level A/B tests there.
  • Cheapest tracked output pricing is tied, so migration risk shifts to quality, latency, and provider packaging.
Claude Opus 4.6 -> Claude Opus 4.5
  • Provider overlap exists on Microsoft Foundry, Anthropic, and GCP Vertex AI; start route-level A/B tests there.
  • Cheapest tracked output pricing is tied, so migration risk shifts to quality, latency, and provider packaging.

Specs

Specification
Released2025-11-012026-02-05
Context window200k1m
Parameters——
ArchitectureDecoder OnlyDecoder Only
LicenseProprietaryProprietary
OpennessProprietaryProprietary
WeightsNot releasedNot released
CodeUnknownUnknown
Commercial useCommercial use: conditionalCommercial use: conditional
Knowledge cutoff2025-122025-12

Pricing and availability

Pricing attributeClaude Opus 4.5Claude Opus 4.6
Input price$5/1M tokens$5/1M tokens
Output price$25/1M tokens$25/1M tokens
Providers
Microsoft FoundryAnthropicGCP Vertex AIAWS BedrockOpenRouterVercel AI Gateway
AnthropicAWS BedrockGCP Vertex AIMicrosoft FoundryOpenRouterVercel AI Gateway

Capabilities

CapabilityClaude Opus 4.5Claude Opus 4.6
VisionYesYes
MultimodalYesYes
ReasoningYesYes
JSON / Tool useYesYes
Structured outputsYesYes
Code executionYesYes
IDE integrationNoNo
Computer useNoNo
Parallel agentsNoNo

Benchmarks

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Opus 4.6
MMLU PRO88.989.1
SWE-bench Verified80.980.8
SWE-bench Pro41.853.4
Google-Proof Q&A87.091.3
Massive Multi-discipline Multimodal Understanding80.776.5
Chatbot Arena1466.01501.0
ARC-AGI-237.668.8
MMMU Pro73.977.3
Aider Polyglot72.072.0

Continue comparing

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