Claude Opus 4.7 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6
Opus is 5× the price of Sonnet. When does the quality justify the cost?
Claude Opus 4.7: $15 input / $75 output per million tokens — Anthropic's most capable model, with 1M-token context. Claude Sonnet 4.6: $3 / $15 — the workhorse, ~80% as capable as Opus on most tasks at 20% of the price. The default rule: Sonnet for production, Opus for complex multi-step reasoning, code generation, and scientific writing.
Key Differences
| Aspect | Claude Opus 4.7 Cost Calculator | Claude Sonnet 4.6 Cost Calculator |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $15/MTok | $3/MTok |
| Output price | $75/MTok | $15/MTok |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 200k tokens |
| Use case | Reasoning, code, research | Default workhorse |
| Cost per typical chat | ~$0.15 | ~$0.03 |
When to use Claude Opus 4.7 Cost Calculator
- Multi-step agentic workflows (>5 tool calls)
- Complex code generation and refactors
- Long-context analysis (>200k tokens)
- High-stakes outputs where quality margin matters
When to use Claude Sonnet 4.6 Cost Calculator
- High-volume production traffic
- Single-shot completions
- Customer service / FAQ chatbots
- Cost-sensitive applications
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should I expect to pay running Opus in production?
For a typical SaaS at 100k users with 5 chats/user/month at 5,000 input + 1,000 output tokens each: ~$45k/mo on Opus vs ~$9k/mo on Sonnet. Most teams use Sonnet by default and route specific calls to Opus.
Is Opus worth 5× the price?
Only for the workloads where Sonnet noticeably fails. For chat, summarization, classification, and standard code: no. For agentic SDK applications, complex code, and reasoning chains: yes.