June 02, 2026  
Last updated: June 03, 2026

# Claude Opus 4.8: Pricing, benchmarks, and which model to actually run in 2026

By Lyne Carolyne

## Contents

- What actually changed in Claude Opus 4.8?
- How much does Claude Opus 4.8 cost?
- Opus 4.8 vs. Sonnet 4.6: Should you use Opus 4.8 or Sonnet 4.6?
- Opus 4.8 vs. GPT-5.5: How does Opus 4.8 compare to GPT-5.5?
- How do you get started with Claude Opus 4.8?
- How does CloudZero track Claude Opus 4.8 costs in real time?
- Claude Opus 4.8 FAQs

## Quick Answer

Claude Opus 4.8 launched May 28, 2026 at $5 input / $25 output per million tokens, same price as Opus 4.7. Four things changed: Dynamic Workflows for parallel agentic coding, Effort Control for managing reasoning depth and cost per call, a Fast Mode now 3x cheaper than Opus 4.7's, and mid-task system messages now out of beta. API model ID: claude-opus-4-8.

## What actually changed in Claude Opus 4.8?

Anthropic called this release “ _modest but tangible_.” That is honest. The benchmark gains are real. No single number is a revolution. What makes 4.8 worth reading about is four changes that land differently depending on how your team uses Claude.

### The number nobody talked about: USAMO 2026

Claude Opus 4.8 scored 96.7% on the USAMO 2026 math benchmark, up from 69.3% on [Opus 4.7](/content/blog/claude-opus-4-7-pricing/index.html).

### Dynamic workflows: Powerful, and expensive if you do not plan

Dynamic Workflows is the biggest engineering feature in this release. Each sub-agent runs its own token count. A 50-agent session costs approximately 50x the tokens of a single-agent equivalent. CloudZero tracks Dynamic Workflow sessions by workspace.

### Mid-task system messages: One less workaround

Mid-conversation system message updates on the Messages API are now generally available. Claude’s instructions can update during a long session.

### Fast mode: 3x cheaper than it was

Fast Mode at 2.5x speed existed on Opus 4.7. What is new in 4.8 is the price: $10 input / $50 output per million tokens, 3x cheaper than Opus 4.7’s Fast Mode.

### Effort control: The cost dial everyone else called a quality feature

Four settings: low, high (default), extra/xhigh, and max.

- High uses roughly the same tokens as Opus 4.7 default but with better output
- Low uses fewer tokens and responds faster
- Max uses more of both

## The AI Cost Optimization Playbook

Traditional cloud cost management is broken. Here’s why — and how to make the switch to cloud cost intelligence.

## How much does Claude Opus 4.8 cost?

The pricing page held flat.  
**Pricing table**  
| Mode | Input per 1M tokens | Output per 1M tokens | Speed |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Standard | $5.00 | $25.00 | Baseline |
| Fast Mode (optional) | $10.00 | $50.00 | 2.5x faster |

**Context window:** 1M input / 128K output. On by default, no API flag needed.

### Three things that will affect your actual bill

1. Upgrading from Opus 4.6 directly? A tokenizer change introduced in 4.7 can increase effective token counts by up to 35%.  
2. Effort Control defaults to high.  
3. Dynamic Workflows scale with sub-agent count.

## Opus 4.8 vs. Sonnet 4.6: Should you use Opus 4.8 or Sonnet 4.6?

Opus 4.8 is better on the benchmarks that matter for complex work. What is in question is whether that quality difference justifies $22 more per million output tokens for your specific tasks.

### When Opus 4.8 makes sense

- Serious agentic coding.  
- Computer use tasks.  
- Complex financial and reasoning tasks.  
- Selective routing at max effort.

### When Sonnet 4.6 Is the Right Answer

Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3 input / $15 output per million tokens. For most of what production AI systems do most of the time, that 15% quality gap does not change the business result.

| Monthly Output | Opus 4.8 | Sonnet 4.6 | Monthly Difference |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 100M tokens | $2,500 | $1,500 | $1,000 |
| 500M tokens | $12,500 | $7,500 | $5,000 |
| 1B tokens | $25,000 | $15,000 | $10,000 |

## Opus 4.8 vs. GPT-5.5: How does Opus 4.8 compare to GPT-5.5?

Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 are both priced at $5 input / $25 output per million tokens. Where Opus 4.8 leads: SWE-bench Pro at 69.2% vs. 58.6%.

## How do you get started with Claude Opus 4.8?

**API model ID:** claude-opus-4-8

## How does CloudZero track Claude Opus 4.8 costs in real time?

CloudZero integrates directly with Anthropic.

## Claude Opus 4.8 FAQs

### When was Claude Opus 4.8 released?

May 28, 2026.

### How much does Claude Opus 4.8 cost?

$5.00 input / $25.00 output per million tokens at standard pricing, unchanged from Opus 4.7.

### What is the API model ID for Claude Opus 4.8?

claude-opus-4-8.

### What is the context window for Claude Opus 4.8?

1 million input tokens and 128,000 output tokens.

### Opus 4.8 or Sonnet 4.6?

Opus 4.8 for complex tasks, Sonnet 4.6 for most production work.