Claude API pricing visualized: Batch saves 50%, cache reads down to 0.1x
dthrdr · reddit · 2026-10-26
A Reddit user turned Claude's official API pricing (as of Oct 26, 2026) into a log-scale visualization covering the full Fable/Opus/Sonnet/Haiku lineup:
- Flagship Fable 5.1 / Opus 5.5: $10/$4 in, $50/$20 out per million tokens
- Sonnet 5.5 is the everyday workhorse at $2/$10; Haiku 5.5 is cheapest at $0.10/$0.50
The author's core point: not offloading subtasks to Haiku supervised by Opus/Sonnet "is silly at these prices." Stackable savings:
- Batch API: -50% on input and output (not for Managed Agents)
- Skipping US-only inference saves 10% (the surcharge applies to Claude 4.6+)
- Cache reads as low as 0.1x on Opus/Sonnet 5.5; cache writes 1.25x–2x
Also flagged hidden costs: $10 per 1,000 web searches, +$0.08 per Managed Agent session-hour, and a newer tokenizer consuming 30% more tokens for the same text.
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