Chat turn cost
1K fresh input + 500 output tokens
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the lower estimated token cost for this stated workload. Costs use the listed standard API rates.
Confidence: listed-rates
Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5
Updated October 17, 2026. Rank says Claude Opus 4.5 is ahead. Price, access, and your workload can each overturn that. Public scores include evidence status and uncertainty.
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Decision reading
Claude Opus 4.5 has the higher public point estimate, 54.05 versus 47.96. Their conditional score ranges overlap. These ranges do not establish rank confidence. 10 results are shared. Category rows resting on Estimated evidence or different benchmark sets are marked directional and do not name a winner.
- Shared results
- 10
- Claude Opus 4.5 only
- 51
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 only
- 2
- Like-for-like categories
- 0 / 8
Supported: Claude Opus 4.5 · Estimated: Claude Sonnet 4.5. Conditional ranges do not establish rank confidence.How the comparison works
Which one for your work
Recommendations appear only when a shared evidence basis or an explicit operating constraint supports the call. Secondary and unsupported use cases stay disclosed below the initial list.
Show secondary and unsupported calls
Repository review cost
50K fresh input + 3K output tokens
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the lower estimated token cost for this stated workload. Costs use the listed standard API rates.
Confidence: listed-ratesCoding work
Code generation, repair, and software-engineering tasks
Not enough matched evidence
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is not ranked on the public lane for coding, so no winner is named for coding.
Confidence: limitedAgentic work
Tool use, computer use, and multi-step task completion
Not enough matched evidence
Claude Opus 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 4.5 are scored on Estimated evidence for agentic, so the reading is directional rather than like-for-like.
Confidence: limitedLong documents
Prompts that approach the documented context limit
No clear pick
The documented context windows are equal.
Confidence: documentedCache-heavy agent loop cost
200K cached + 20K fresh input + 10K output tokens
Not enough matched evidence
The page does not recommend a cost winner because at least one model cannot fit the stated workload in one request. Claude Opus 4.5 does not fit this workload in one request. Claude Sonnet 4.5 does not fit this workload in one request. Claude Opus 4.5 has no published cached-input rate, so cached tokens use its listed input rate. Claude Sonnet 4.5 has no published cached-input rate, so cached tokens use its listed input rate.
Confidence: rate-fallback
Which one for a specific job
Choose a job from the LLM Selector's task catalog to see the category row it rests on, under the same basis rules as the table below. A directional row stays directional; choosing a job never creates a winner.
The same task catalog as the LLM Selector. Each job names the evidence surface it rests on; nothing here adds a new score.
40.3Claude Opus 4.5—Claude Sonnet 4.5
Not comparable · BenchAlign v5.8
The coding row is not comparable on the public lane: at least one model is not measured or not ranked there.
Coding scores combine specific tasks and setups. Match the editor, harness, and effort to your workflow.
Same basis rules as the category table below
What is actually comparable
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results present for only one model describe coverage, not superiority.
51 Claude Opus 4.5 only
10 Shared
2 Claude Sonnet 4.5 only
1 category rests on Estimated evidence or different evidence sets. Those rows remain visible for coverage context but do not name a winner.
Shape of the matched evidence
Only shared public evidence is shown. Sparse evidence stays a ruled list rather than being closed into a radar shape.
Too few matched category axes support a radar. The ruled list below shows only shared benchmark results; positions use each benchmark’s normalized display scale when available.
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Math
Normalized gap 10.5Claude Opus 4.5:34.386%Claude Sonnet 4.5:23.860%Terminal-Bench 2.0Agentic
Normalized gap 9.3Claude Opus 4.5:59.3%Claude Sonnet 4.5:50%OSWorld-VerifiedAgentic
Normalized gap 4.9Claude Opus 4.5:66.3%Claude Sonnet 4.5:61.4%SWE-bench VerifiedCoding
Normalized gap 3.7Claude Opus 4.5:80.9%Claude Sonnet 4.5:77.2%GPQAKnowledge
Normalized gap 3.6Claude Opus 4.5:87%Claude Sonnet 4.5:83.4%
Bars run 0–100 on each benchmark’s normalized display scale
Category results, on a stated basis
Each row shows the public-lane category score for both models: the BenchAlign v5.8 lane for agentic, coding, and knowledge, and the weighted public rows elsewhere, with the same rank each model page reports. A row is like-for-like only when both scores rest on Supported evidence or the same weighted set. Directional and not-comparable rows remain visible, but they never receive a winner.
Agentic
Directional only- Claude Opus 4.5
- 32.3
- Estimated · #89/128
- Claude Sonnet 4.5
- 35.1
- Estimated · #81/128
- Basis
- BenchAlign v5.8 lane · 15 vs 5 public rows
- Reading
- Directional only
Coding
Not comparable- Claude Opus 4.5
- 40.3
- Estimated · #64/150
- Claude Sonnet 4.5
- Not ranked
- Basis
- BenchAlign v5.8 lane · 6 vs 2 public rows
- Reading
- Not comparable
Reasoning
Not comparable- Claude Opus 4.5
- 78.3
- Unranked · 4 rankable rows
- Claude Sonnet 4.5
- 22.9
- Unranked · 1 rankable row
- Basis
- Provisional lane · 1 vs 1 weighted rows
- Reading
- Not comparable
Multimodal
Not comparable- Claude Opus 4.5
- 48.6
- #49/54
- Claude Sonnet 4.5
- Not ranked
- Basis
- Provisional lane · 2 vs 0 weighted rows
- Reading
- Not comparable
Knowledge
Not comparable- Claude Opus 4.5
- 51.2
- Estimated · #77/184
- Claude Sonnet 4.5
- Not ranked
- Basis
- BenchAlign v5.8 lane · 6 vs 1 public rows
- Reading
- Not comparable
Multilingual
Not comparable- Claude Opus 4.5
- 96.5
- #2/17
- Claude Sonnet 4.5
- Not ranked
- Basis
- Provisional lane · 1 vs 0 weighted rows
- Reading
- Not comparable
Instruction following
Not comparable- Claude Opus 4.5
- 31.9
- #131/148
- Claude Sonnet 4.5
- Not ranked
- Basis
- Provisional lane · 1 vs 0 weighted rows
- Reading
- Not comparable
Math
Not comparable- Claude Opus 4.5
- 61.3
- #9/12
- Claude Sonnet 4.5
- 36.4
- Unranked · 2 rankable rows
- Basis
- Provisional lane · 4 vs 2 weighted rows
- Reading
- Not comparable
| Category | Claude Opus 4.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Basis | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agentic | 32.3Estimated · #89/128 | 35.1Estimated · #81/128 | Directional onlyBenchAlign v5.8 lane · 15 vs 5 public rows | Directional only |
| Coding | 40.3Estimated · #64/150 | Not ranked | Not comparableBenchAlign v5.8 lane · 6 vs 2 public rows | Not comparable |
| Reasoning | 78.3Unranked · 4 rankable rows | 22.9Unranked · 1 rankable row | Not comparableProvisional lane · 1 vs 1 weighted rows | Not comparable |
| Multimodal | 48.6#49/54 | Not ranked | Not comparableProvisional lane · 2 vs 0 weighted rows | Not comparable |
| Knowledge | 51.2Estimated · #77/184 | Not ranked | Not comparableBenchAlign v5.8 lane · 6 vs 1 public rows | Not comparable |
| Multilingual | 96.5#2/17 | Not ranked | Not comparableProvisional lane · 1 vs 0 weighted rows | Not comparable |
| Instruction following | 31.9#131/148 | Not ranked | Not comparableProvisional lane · 1 vs 0 weighted rows | Not comparable |
| Math | 61.3#9/12 | 36.4Unranked · 2 rankable rows | Not comparableProvisional lane · 4 vs 2 weighted rows | Not comparable |
Ranks count the models scored in each category’s lane, so the agentic, coding, and knowledge denominators (BenchAlign v5.8) differ from the provisional-lane categories. Unranked scores sit on the provisional lane’s scale but never name a winner. Like-for-like rows within 0.5 points read as a practical tie.
Bars run 0–100Methodology
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes turn per-token rates into comparable decisions. Each scenario states context fit and whether cached input had to fall back to the published list-input rate.
Chat turn
1K fresh input + 500 output tokens
- Claude Opus 4.5
- $0.0175
- Fits in one request
- Claude Sonnet 4.5
- $0.0105
- Fits in one request
Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the lower modeled cost
Costs use the listed standard API rates.
Repository review
50K fresh input + 3K output tokens
- Claude Opus 4.5
- $0.325
- Fits in one request
- Claude Sonnet 4.5
- $0.195
- Fits in one request
Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the lower modeled cost
Costs use the listed standard API rates.
Cache-heavy agent loop
200K cached + 20K fresh input + 10K output tokens
- Claude Opus 4.5
- $1.35
- Does not fit in one request
- Cached input priced at the published list-input rate
- Claude Sonnet 4.5
- $0.81
- Does not fit in one request
- Cached input priced at the published list-input rate
Claude Opus 4.5 does not fit this workload in one request. Claude Sonnet 4.5 does not fit this workload in one request. Claude Opus 4.5 has no published cached-input rate, so cached tokens use its listed input rate. Claude Sonnet 4.5 has no published cached-input rate, so cached tokens use its listed input rate.
Cached input falls back to the list input rate only where a cached rate is unpublished
Specification differences
Sourced differences are shown directly. Missing facts stay explicit instead of being inferred from a model name or family.
SpecificationClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.5
Context window
Maximum documented context; output-token limits may be lower.
Claude Opus 4.5
200K
Claude Sonnet 4.5
200K
API model ID
Claude Opus 4.5
Not sourced
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Not sourced
Cached-input rate
A missing cached-input rate falls back to the listed input rate only in the stated workload estimate.
Claude Opus 4.5
Not published
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Not published
Documented inputs
Claude Opus 4.5
Not sourced
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Not sourced
Documented outputs
Claude Opus 4.5
Not sourced
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Not sourced
Provider availability
Claude Opus 4.5
Not sourced
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Not sourced
Reasoning profile
Claude Opus 4.5
Non-Reasoning
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Non-Reasoning
Weight access
Claude Opus 4.5
Proprietary
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Proprietary
License
Claude Opus 4.5
Proprietary
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Proprietary
Release date
Claude Opus 4.5
2025-11-24
Claude Sonnet 4.5
2025-09-29
If you already use one of these models
- Deployment change
- Both entries list Anthropic as the provider. Confirm endpoint, model ID, limits, and feature support before switching.
- Quality signal
- Claude Opus 4.5 has the higher public point estimate, 54.05 versus 47.96. Their conditional score ranges overlap. These ranges do not establish rank confidence.
- Workload cost
- Repository review: $0.325 vs $0.195. Cache-heavy agent loop: $1.35 vs $0.81.
- Context tradeoff
- Both models list 200K.
Run the same representative tasks against both endpoints before changing production traffic.
Questions
Which is better, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.5?
Claude Opus 4.5 has the higher public point estimate, 54.05 versus 47.96. Their conditional score ranges overlap. These ranges do not establish rank confidence. The page therefore keeps the decision tied to the specific documented workload.
Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.5?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is not ranked on the public lane for coding, so no winner is named for coding.
Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.5?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 scores higher for agentic tasks on the public lane, 35.1 to 32.3. Claude Opus 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 4.5 are scored on Estimated evidence for agentic tasks, so the reading is directional rather than like-for-like. BenchLM does not name a winner for agentic tasks from a directional reading; read the shared benchmark rows directly and test the models on the same task set.
Which costs less, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.5?
For the stated presets, chat costs $0.0175 on Claude Opus 4.5 and $0.0105 on Claude Sonnet 4.5; repository review costs $0.325 and $0.195; the cache-heavy agent loop costs $1.35 and $0.81. Claude Opus 4.5 does not fit this workload in one request. Claude Sonnet 4.5 does not fit this workload in one request. Claude Opus 4.5 has no published cached-input rate, so cached tokens use its listed input rate. Claude Sonnet 4.5 has no published cached-input rate, so cached tokens use its listed input rate.
Which has the larger context window, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.5?
Both models list the same context window, 200K.
Benchmark evidence
The full public result ledger is available for audit without forcing a wide desktop table onto a phone.
Browse raw public benchmark evidence63 rows
Agentic
Terminal-Bench 2.0
Shared sourceClaude Opus 4.559.3%Claude Sonnet 4.550%Claude Opus 4.5 leads this result
OSWorld-Verified
Shared sourceClaude Opus 4.566.3%Claude Sonnet 4.561.4%Claude Opus 4.5 leads this result
OSWorld
Claude Opus 4.566.3%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
Claw-Eval
Claude Opus 4.559.6%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
QwenClawBench
Claude Opus 4.552.3%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
τ³-bench results
Claude Opus 4.570.2%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
VITA-Bench
Shared sourceClaude Opus 4.523.3%Claude Sonnet 4.517.0%Claude Opus 4.5 leads this result
DeepPlanning
Claude Opus 4.526.4%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
Toolathlon
Claude Opus 4.543.5%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
MCP Atlas
Claude Opus 4.542.3%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
MCP-Tasks
Claude Opus 4.571.8%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
WideResearch
Claude Opus 4.576.4%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
CyberGym
Claude Opus 4.550.6%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
Gert Labs
Shared sourceClaude Opus 4.564.23%Claude Sonnet 4.548.51%Claude Opus 4.5 leads this result
JobBench
Shared sourceClaude Opus 4.532.3%Claude Sonnet 4.527.7%Claude Opus 4.5 leads this result
Coding
SWE-bench Verified
Shared sourceClaude Opus 4.580.9%Claude Sonnet 4.577.2%Claude Opus 4.5 leads this result
LiveCodeBench v6
Claude Opus 4.584.8%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
SWE-bench Pro
Claude Opus 4.557.1%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
SWE Multilingual
Claude Opus 4.577.5%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
NL2Repo
Claude Opus 4.543.2%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0
Shared sourceClaude Opus 4.559.3%Claude Sonnet 4.550.0%Claude Opus 4.5 leads this result
Reasoning
Multimodal
MMMU
Claude Opus 4.580.7%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
MMMU-Pro
Claude Opus 4.570.6%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
RealWorldQA
Claude Opus 4.577.0%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
OmniDocBench 1.5
Claude Opus 4.587.7%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
Video-MME (with subtitle)
Claude Opus 4.577.6%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
Video-MME (w/o subtitle)
Claude Opus 4.581.4%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
MathVision
Claude Opus 4.574.3%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
We-Math
Claude Opus 4.570.0%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
DynaMath
Claude Opus 4.579.7%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
SimpleVQA
Claude Opus 4.565.7%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
CharXiv
Claude Opus 4.568.5%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
CountBench
Claude Opus 4.590.6%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
AI2D_TEST
Claude Opus 4.587.7%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
ERQA
Claude Opus 4.546.8%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
VideoMMMU
Claude Opus 4.584.4%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
MLVU (M-Avg)
Claude Opus 4.581.7%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
ScreenSpot Pro
Claude Opus 4.545.7%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
V*
Claude Opus 4.567.0%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
Knowledge
GPQA
Shared sourceClaude Opus 4.587%Claude Sonnet 4.583.4%Claude Opus 4.5 leads this result
SuperGPQA
Claude Opus 4.570.6%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
MMLU-Pro
Claude Opus 4.589.5%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
MMLU-Redux
Claude Opus 4.596.6%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
C-Eval
Claude Opus 4.592.2%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
HLE
Claude Opus 4.530.8%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
Multilingual
MMLU-ProX
Claude Opus 4.585.7%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
NOVA-63
Claude Opus 4.556.7%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
INCLUDE
Claude Opus 4.586.2%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
PolyMath
Claude Opus 4.579.0%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
MAXIFE
Claude Opus 4.579.2%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
Instruction following
Math
AIME26
Claude Opus 4.595.1%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
HMMT Feb 2025
Claude Opus 4.592.9%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
HMMT Nov 2025
Claude Opus 4.593.3%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
HMMT Feb 2026
Claude Opus 4.585.3%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
MMAnswerBench
Claude Opus 4.584.0%SourceClaude Sonnet 4.5—Not directly comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)
Shared sourceClaude Opus 4.534.386%Claude Sonnet 4.523.860%Claude Opus 4.5 leads this result
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)
Shared sourceClaude Opus 4.54.878%Claude Sonnet 4.52.439%Claude Opus 4.5 leads this result
AIME 2025
Claude Opus 4.5—Claude Sonnet 4.587%SourceNot directly comparable
63 public results · 10 shared
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Last updated October 17, 2026