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AnthropicClaude Opus 5VSAnthropicClaude Sonnet 5

Analysis by:the whichllmmodel Editorial Team|Updated: June 2026

Our Take

We recommend Claude Opus 5 for its clear benchmark advantage, or the 2.5x cheaper Claude Sonnet 5 only if your budget requires optimizing costs for very high-volume pipelines. While Claude Opus 5 offers superior reasoning and coding, it carries a moderate price premium. Choose Claude Opus 5 for quality, or Claude Sonnet 5 for cost optimization.
▶WHY?
Benchmark Calculations & Evidence:
  • Coding Benchmarks: Both models were evaluated on the SWE-bench Pro benchmark. Claude Opus 5 scored 79.2%, while Claude Sonnet 5 scored 63.2%.
  • Reasoning Benchmarks: Both models were evaluated on the GPQA Diamond benchmark. Claude Opus 5 scored 93.7%, while Claude Sonnet 5 scored 91.1%.
  • Cost Efficiency: Claude Sonnet 5 pricing ($2/M input, $10/M output) is 2.5x cheaper than Claude Opus 5 ($5/M input, $25/M output).
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    Model Specs

    Claude Opus 5

    Website

    Benchmarks & Scores

    Coding (swe-bench-pro)Winner (+16.0%)
    79.2%

    complex codebases, multi-file repositories, and architectural planning

    Reasoning (gpqa-diamond)Winner (+2.6%)
    93.7%

    graduate-level science QA

    Cost & Context

    Cost (per 1M tokens)
    $10.00Input: $5.00 | Output: $25.00
    Context Window
    1.05M tokens
    Model Specs

    Claude Sonnet 5

    Website

    Benchmarks & Scores

    Coding (swe-bench-pro)
    63.2%

    complex codebases, multi-file repositories, and architectural planning

    Reasoning (gpqa-diamond)
    91.1%

    graduate-level science QA

    Cost & Context

    Cost (per 1M tokens)2.5x cheaper
    $4.00Input: $2.00 | Output: $10.00
    Context Window
    1.05M tokens
    Read our data collection methodology

    Frequently Asked Questions about Claude Opus 5 vs Claude Sonnet 5

    Claude Sonnet 5 is cheaper than Claude Opus 5. Claude Sonnet 5 has a blended cost of $4.00/1M tokens, which is about 2.5x cheaper than Claude Opus 5 at $10.00/1M tokens.

    Claude Opus 5 is better for coding tasks on this benchmark. It scores 79.2% on swe-bench-pro (complex codebases, multi-file repositories, and architectural planning) compared to Claude Sonnet 5 which scores 63.2%.

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