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Claude Opus 5.5

The strongest all-round pick when quality matters more than cost, especially for big, complicated jobs like long coding projects.

Last updated October 16, 2026.

Costs here use the prices AI companies charge software developers, so they show relative cost, not your monthly bill. See what ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini charge you.

Made by Anthropic, the company behind Claude. Most capable.

What it costs

1,000-word essay: $0.03 (about 3 cents)
100 chat messages: $5.25
50-page PDF summary: $0.15 (about 15 cents)

Based on list prices and the assumptions on How we work. Your real cost will differ.

At a glance

Smartness: ★★★★★ (5 of 5) (our banding of the Artificial Analysis score, where available)
Reads at once: about 1,500 pages (rule of thumb)
Understands: text, pictures, files
Free to download and run yourself: No
Free to use: Not free for developers. Free app plans

App plans and prices for Claude: see plans.

Best for

codinghard problemslong documents

Watch out for

One of the pricier options. Use a cheaper model for routine work.

Picked for

Code

Appears in

Compare

Claude vs Gemini

Frequently asked

How much does Claude Opus 5.5 cost to use?
A 1,000-word essay costs about $0.03 (about 3 cents); summarizing a 50-page PDF about $0.15 (about 15 cents). These are developer (API) prices, not an app subscription.

What is Claude Opus 5.5 best for?
The strongest all-round pick when quality matters more than cost, especially for big, complicated jobs like long coding projects.

How much can Claude Opus 5.5 read at once?
About 1,500 pages (a rule of thumb: 1,000,000 tokens at roughly 500 words a page).

Can I download Claude Opus 5.5 for free?
No. It is only available through the maker or other paid services.

Under the hood

Maker	Anthropic
Price per 1M input tokens	$4.00
Price per 1M output tokens	$20.00
Context size	1M tokens (1,000,000)
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index	57.6 (source, via OpenRouter)
Open weights	No
Speed	Not measured yet
Listed	2026-09-22

Maker's description (technical)

Claude Opus 5.5 is Anthropic's flagship model for demanding reasoning, coding, and long-horizon agentic work, succeeding Claude Opus 5. It is particularly strong at multi-step changes in large codebases, code...

View on OpenRouter. Our verdict above is editorial, not benchmarked by us.