Claude Sonnet 5 Pricing: $2/$10 Intro Rate Through Aug 31, 2026
Claude Sonnet 5 lists at $2/$10 per million tokens (input/output) — an introductory price that runs through 2026-08-31. How it compares to Opus 5 and Fable 5, and what to do before the window closes.
Fable5 EditorialAs of August 2026, Claude Sonnet 5 (claude-sonnet-5) lists at an introductory $2 / $10 per million input/output tokens — the cheapest rate in Anthropic’s current flagship-tier lineup. That price runs through 2026-08-31, and it is promotional. Here is what it means, how it compares, and what to do before the window closes.
What the intro price is
Sonnet 5 is Anthropic’s mid-tier, agentic model: a 1M-token context window, up to 128K output tokens, and quality that lands close to Opus 4.8 for a fraction of the price. At the moment it lists at:
- $2 per million input tokens
- $10 per million output tokens
- Intro price until 2026-08-31 (per Anthropic’s pricing page, verified August 2026)
The site’s @/lib/model-pricing reference marks the same thing explicitly: introPriceUntil: '2026-08-31'. After that date the rate is expected to change, so treat today’s $2/$10 as the promotional value, not the steady state.
Why it matters
At $2/$10, Sonnet 5 is the cheapest current flagship-tier Claude model by a wide margin. That makes it the natural default for work that is:
- High-volume — summarization, extraction, chat, and routine agentic coding where per-token cost dominates.
- Token- or latency-sensitive — fast enough to keep interactive products snappy, at a rate that scales with volume.
The catch is that the price is time-limited. Teams that build on Sonnet 5 at $2/$10 should factor a post-8/31 re-price into their cost planning rather than assuming the rate holds.
How it compares
| Model | Price (in / out per M tokens) | Context | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Sonnet 5 | $2 / $10 | 1M | Budget, high-volume, speed |
| Claude Opus 5 | $5 / $25 | 1M | Heavy reasoning, default on Max |
| Claude Fable 5 | $10 / $50 | 1M | Long-horizon, security, full-repo |
A simple routing rule: default to Opus 5 at high effort when quality matters most, Sonnet 5 for budget and volume, and Fable 5 only for long-horizon, security-sensitive, or 1M-full-repo escalation where peak reasoning justifies the 5x premium over Sonnet 5. See the full breakdown on the Claude Fable 5 vs Opus 5 and Sonnet 5 vs Fable 5 pages.
What to do before 8/31
If you are price-sensitive, the intro window is the time to evaluate:
- Run trials on Sonnet 5 now for the workloads you expect to move to it at scale.
- Measure the real cost — including the ~30% tokenizer inflation on old token counts — with the cost calculator.
- Lock in your routing default before the price changes, so a post-8/31 re-price doesn’t force a hasty migration.
Summary
- Sonnet 5 lists at $2 / $10 per million tokens (input/output) as of August 2026.
- Intro price runs through 2026-08-31 and is promotional — it is expected to change after that.
- 1M context, 128K output, and the cheapest flagship-tier rate in the lineup.
- Default: Opus 5 at high effort, Sonnet 5 for budget and volume, Fable 5 for long-horizon escalation.
- Verify the live rate on Anthropic’s pricing page and the Sonnet 5 model page.
Independent analysis, last updated August 5, 2026. Intro pricing and model data per Anthropic’s pricing page, verified August 2026 — official sources always win on conflict.