--- title: Claude Opus 5.5 released: 40% cheaper than Opus 5,... description: Anthropic launched Claude Opus 5.5, priced 40% cheaper than Opus 5 with cache reads 60% cheaper, while performing roughly on par with Claude Fable 5.1 on most... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/claude-opus-5-5-released-40-cheaper-than-opus-5-matches-fable-5-1-on-most-tasks-bmhfz592n twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Claude Opus 5.5 released: 40% cheaper than Opus 5, matches Fable 5.1 on most tasks | daily.dev og:description: Anthropic launched Claude Opus 5.5, priced 40% cheaper than Opus 5 with cache reads 60% cheaper, while performing roughly on par with Claude Fable 5.1 on most... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/claude-opus-5-5-released-40-cheaper-than-opus-5-matches-fable-5-1-on-most-tasks-bmhfz592n og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/bmhFZ592n.png og:image:alt: Claude Opus 5.5 released: 40% cheaper than Opus 5, matches Fable 5.1 on most tasks og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Claude Opus 5.5 released: 40% cheaper than Opus 5, matches Fable 5.1 on most tasks **[Collections](https://daily.dev/sources/collections)** · 4 min read · 34 upvotes · 3 comments ## Summary Anthropic launched Claude Opus 5.5, priced 40% cheaper than Opus 5 with cache reads 60% cheaper, while performing roughly on par with Claude Fable 5.1 on most tasks. Benchmark comparisons against Fable 5.1 and Astra are starting to circulate. Addy Osmani celebrated the release by generating a pelican riding a bike in Three.js as an informal model stress test. ## Content Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5, the first model in its new 5.5 family, targeting long-running coding and knowledge work. The headline claim: it matches Claude Fable 5.1 on most tasks while costing about 40% less to run than Opus 5. ## Pricing Input tokens drop from $5 to $4 per million, output from $25 to $20 per million. Cache reads fall 60% to $0.20 per million. Output arrives roughly 30% faster, and a Fast mode pushes up to 2.5x speed at double the token price. The overall cost reduction comes from both lower per-token pricing and the model needing fewer tokens to complete tasks. ## Coding performance On agentic coding benchmarks, Opus 5.5 takes the top spot on CursorBench (57.8% at Max effort), Terminal-Bench, and FrontierCode 1.1, beating Fable 5.1 at a fraction of the cost. An internal test had both Opus 5.5 and Fable 5.1 port HAProxy from C to Rust. Both passed nearly all of HAProxy's tests, but Opus 5.5 finished in 9.5 hours versus Fable 5.1's 12 hours, at 51% lower cost. GitHub's testing in Copilot CLI and VS Code showed Opus 5.5 matching Opus 5's task resolution while using significantly fewer steps and tokens. It's now available across Copilot's full IDE lineup. Perplexity ran it on their WANDR benchmark: 0.610 score at $4.13 per task, slightly outperforming Fable 5.1 at 67.6% lower cost per task. Vercel's Next.js evals put Opus 5.5 tied at 97% alongside GPT-6 Sol and Fable 5.1, with Grok 4.7 close behind at 94% but 2-7x cheaper. ## Enterprise results Box tested Opus 5.5 on complex knowledge work with unstructured data and reported 63% fewer tokens used, 42% less verbosity, and 30% faster completion versus Opus 5. Specific task results: - **Financial due diligence**: Perfect score on every attempt, 82% fewer tokens - **Cloud cost analysis**: +65% task accuracy, 70% fewer tokens, half the time - **Client account analysis**: +17% task accuracy, 78% fewer tokens - **Clinical data analysis**: +15% task accuracy, 78% fewer tokens, half the answer length ## Writing and creative work Several early testers flagged the writing improvements as the most noticeable change. The model front-loads key information, reduces jargon, and communicates more clearly. One developer described it as writing like Opus 4.6 while coding like Fable 5.1. On the creative side, testers built JavaScript animations, Three.js scenes, Blender worlds, 3D gym equipment renderers, and historically accurate San Francisco street scenes. It scored 93.9% on ParseBench for PDF table extraction, a 7%+ improvement over Opus 5, beating Fable, Gemini, and Astra on that task. ## Technical details - 1M-token context window, up to 128K output tokens - Knowledge cutoff: June 2026 - Adaptive thinking is now required; fixed thinking budgets and disabled thinking are rejected (previously valid API calls will return HTTP 400) - Forced tool use is retired - Switching effort levels mid-session in Claude Code does not break prompt cache (requires Claude Code v2.1.280+) - Safety classifiers can silently reroute individual requests within multi-turn agent workflows to older models (Opus 4.8 or Opus 5), which can create inconsistency in evals that assume a single model throughout ## Safety Opus 5.5 posted Anthropic's strongest internal alignment results to date. Because its biology and cybersecurity capabilities match Mythos 5.1 (it outscores Mythos on every tested cyber eval), it's subject to the same safety safeguards, including routing risky requests to other models. Pre-release evaluation was conducted by METR and Frontier Design. This is also Anthropic's first release since CEO Dario Amodei publicly committed to deliberately pacing capability advances to let safety work keep up. ## Availability Opus 5.5 is available on Claude Platform, AWS (including GovCloud), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Devin, Lovable, v0, Perplexity Computer, Vercel AI Gateway, and Augment Code. Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5 are expected in the coming weeks. For Claude Code users on Pro, Max, and Team plans: 5-hour session limits increased 20%, the lower pricing means limits stretch 25% further, and Anthropic added a banked reset that can be used anytime rather than tied to a window reset. ## Questions this post answers ### How much cheaper is Claude Opus 5.5 compared to Opus 5? Claude Opus 5.5 costs 40% less than Claude Opus 5, with cache reads specifically coming in 60% cheaper. Anthropic positions it as a more cost-efficient option within the Claude lineup, and it performs at roughly the same level as Claude Fable 5.1 on most tasks. _Developers comparing model costs before switching providers can track pricing changes like this on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 5 discussions and 17 comments across x (as of 2026-09-23). **TL;DR:** Reactions center on price/performance skepticism, with several noting benchmark claims (especially vs. Fable/Mythos and GPT-6 Astra) may not be statistically meaningful, while others still find the pricing prohibitive. **Sentiment:** 15% positive · 40% mixed · 45% skeptical **The case for** - Matching Fable/Mythos-tier performance at Opus pricing is seen by some as the more meaningful story than winning benchmarks outright. **The pushback** - Some still find the pricing too high to justify use despite the cost cut. - Several express distrust of self-reported benchmarks, citing past cases where weaker models scored similarly or better. - Some question whether the performance gap versus rival models is even outside the margin of error. **By community** - x (skeptical): Replies mix price complaints, benchmark distrust, and speculation about how it stacks up against a rumored rival model. **Hottest debate:** Whether Opus 5.5's benchmark edge over Fable/Mythos (and comparisons to GPT-6 Astra) is real or just noise within error bars. **Open questions** - Is the reported performance gap versus competing models actually statistically significant? - What is the 'more interesting takeaway' from real usage data that some commenters allude to but don't specify? **Highlights** > @scaling01 Further evidence that Anthropic is sandbagging. > — [GoodFaithOnly on x · 2 points, 1 comments](https://x.com/GoodFaithOnly/status/2102440948521439598) > @scaling01 curious if the gap is actually outside the error bars. even if it's basically a tie, matching Mythos at Opus pricing is the bigger deal for most people > — [themarlonroldan on x · 1 points](https://x.com/themarlonroldan/status/2102445208956735808) > @scaling01 I dont really trust benchmarks anymore, Opus 5 also outscored/tied mythos 5 despite being a much worse model > — [tuomasoi on x](https://x.com/tuomasoi/status/2102484109788627206) > @housecor Still ridiculously expensive. I hate it, but these models are too pricey to justify for anything. > — [burkeholland on x · 4 points, 1 comments](https://x.com/burkeholland/status/2102501465533075687) > @scaling01 I outscore myself on my own benchmark. Totally legit. Trust me bro > — [DmitriiDunin on x](https://x.com/DmitriiDunin/status/2102540850605838340) **Source threads** - [x](https://x.com/addyosmani/status/2102600792238883203) · 0 points · 0 comments - [x](https://x.com/simonw/status/2102620548262195540) · 0 points · 0 comments - [x](https://x.com/theo/status/2102584146510189055) · 0 points · 0 comments - [x](https://x.com/housecor/status/2102448638748504331) · 0 points · 5 comments - [x](https://x.com/scaling01/status/2102439407886139531) · 0 points · 12 comments ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@thedapperfoxtrot** · 0 upvotes > So it's meant to be like this JEV, from what I've been hearing? Why use many word when few word do trick? ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Anthropic’s Opus 5 is almost Fable 5](https://daily.dev/posts/anthropic-s-opus-5-is-almost-fable-5-vlen80a1c) · The New Stack · 9 upvotes · 2 comments --- Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding), [#anthropic](https://daily.dev/tags/anthropic) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/claude-opus-5-5-released-40-cheaper-than-opus-5-matches-fable-5-1-on-most-tasks-bmhfz592n) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Claude Opus 5.5 released: 40% cheaper than Opus 5, matches Fable 5.1 on most tasks","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/claude-opus-5-5-released-40-cheaper-than-opus-5-matches-fable-5-1-on-most-tasks-bmhfz592n","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/claude-opus-5-5-released-40-cheaper-than-opus-5-matches-fable-5-1-on-most-tasks-bmhfz592n"},"datePublished":"2026-09-22T16:35:03.238Z","dateModified":"2026-09-23T08:13:01.433Z","description":"Anthropic launched Claude Opus 5.5, priced 40% cheaper than Opus 5 with cache reads 60% cheaper, while performing roughly on par with Claude Fable 5.1 on most...","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Collections","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Collections","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--fk_6ycEi--/f_auto,q_auto/v1780996001/logos/collections?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/collections"},"commentCount":3,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/claude-opus-5-5-released-40-cheaper-than-opus-5-matches-fable-5-1-on-most-tasks-bmhfz592n","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":34},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}],"keywords":"llm,ai-coding,anthropic","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Collections","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/collections"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Claude Opus 5.5 released: 40% cheaper than Opus 5, matches Fable 5.1 on most tasks"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/claude-opus-5-5-released-40-cheaper-than-opus-5-matches-fable-5-1-on-most-tasks-bmhfz592n","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"So it’s meant to be like this JEV, from what I’ve been hearing? 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