| Signal | Claude Opus 4 | Delta | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
|---|---|---|---|
Capabilities | 83 | -17 | |
Benchmarks | 83 | +2 | |
Pricing | 75 | +60 | |
Context window size | 84 | -11 | |
Recency | 75 | -24 | |
Output Capacity | 75 | -5 | |
| Overall Result | 2 wins | of 6 | 4 wins |
11
days higher
6
days
13
days higher
Anthropic
Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 4.5 saves you $4200.00/month
That's $50400.00/year compared to Claude Opus 4 at your current usage level of 100K calls/month.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall Score | 83 | 83 | Claude Opus 4 |
| Rank | #16 | #18 | Claude Opus 4 |
| Quality Rank | #16 | #18 | Claude Opus 4 |
| Adoption Rank | #16 | #18 | Claude Opus 4 |
| Parameters | -- | -- | -- |
| Context Window | 200K | 1000K | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Pricing | $15.00/$75.00/M | $3.00/$15.00/M | -- |
| Signal Scores | |||
| Capabilities | 83 | 100 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Benchmarks | 83 | 81 | Claude Opus 4 |
| Pricing | 75 | 15 | Claude Opus 4 |
| Context window size | 84 | 95 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Recency | 75 | 99 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Output Capacity | 75 | 80 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
Our score (0-100) is driven by benchmark performance (90%) from Arena Elo ratings, MMLU, GPQA, HumanEval, SWE-bench, and 15+ standardized evaluations. Capabilities and context window serve as tiebreakers (10%). Here's what the scores mean for these two models:
Scores 83/100 (rank #16), placing it in the top 95% of all 290 models tracked.
Scores 83/100 (rank #18), placing it in the top 94% of all 290 models tracked.
With only a 1-point gap, these models are in the same performance tier. The practical difference in output quality is minimal - your choice should depend on pricing, latency requirements, and specific feature needs.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 offers 80% better value per quality point. At 1M tokens/day, you'd spend $270.00/month with Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs $1350.00/month with Claude Opus 4 - a $1080.00 monthly difference.
Both models have comparable response speeds. For most applications, the latency difference is negligible.
When latency matters most: Interactive chatbots, IDE code completion, real-time translation, and user-facing applications where response time directly impacts experience. For batch processing, background summarization, or offline analysis, latency is less critical.
Code generation & review
Higher benchmark score (0/100) indicates stronger performance on coding tasks like generating functions, debugging, and refactoring
Customer support chatbot
Faster response time (speed score 0/100) is critical for user-facing chat. Claude Sonnet 4.5 also offers lower per-token costs for high-volume support
Long document analysis
Larger context window (1000K tokens) can process longer documents, contracts, and research papers in a single pass
Batch data extraction
Lower output pricing ($15.00/M) reduces costs when processing thousands of records daily
Creative writing & content
Higher overall composite score (83/100) correlates with better nuance, coherence, and style in long-form content
Image understanding & OCR
Supports vision input - can analyze screenshots, diagrams, photos, and scanned documents directly
Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4.5 are extremely close in overall performance (only 0.6000000000000085 points apart). Your best choice depends entirely on which specific strengths matter most for your use case.
Best for Quality
Claude Opus 4
Marginally better benchmark scores; both are excellent
Best for Cost
Claude Sonnet 4.5
80% lower pricing; better value at scale
Best for Reliability
Claude Opus 4
Higher uptime and faster response speeds
Best for Prototyping
Claude Opus 4
Stronger community support and better developer experience
Best for Production
Claude Opus 4
Wider enterprise adoption and proven at scale
by Anthropic
| Capability | Claude Opus 4 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Vision (Image Input) | ||
| Function Calling | ||
| Streaming | ||
| JSON Modediffers | ||
| Reasoning | ||
| Web Search | ||
| Image Output |
Anthropic
Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 4.5 saves you $93.60/month
That's 80% cheaper than Claude Opus 4 at 1,000 tokens/request and 100 requests/day.
Assumes 60% input / 40% output token ratio per request. Actual costs may vary based on your usage pattern.
| Parameter | Claude Opus 4 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Context Window | 200K | 1M |
| Max Output Tokens | 32,000 | 64,000 |
| Open Source | No | No |
| Created | May 22, 2025 | Sep 29, 2025 |
Claude Opus 4 scores 83/100 (rank #16) compared to Claude Sonnet 4.5's 83/100 (rank #18), giving it a 1-point advantage. Claude Opus 4 is the stronger overall choice, though Claude Sonnet 4.5 may excel in specific areas like cost efficiency.
Claude Opus 4 is ranked #16 and Claude Sonnet 4.5 is ranked #18 out of 290+ AI models. Rankings use a composite score combining benchmark performance (90%) from MMLU, GPQA, HumanEval, SWE-bench, and 15+ standardized evaluations, with capabilities and context window as tiebreakers (10%). Scores update hourly.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is cheaper at $15.00/M output tokens vs Claude Opus 4's $75.00/M output tokens - 5.0x more expensive. Input token pricing: Claude Opus 4 at $15.00/M vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 at $3.00/M.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a larger context window of 1,000,000 tokens compared to Claude Opus 4's 200,000 tokens. A larger context window means the model can process longer documents and conversations.