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Claude’s model names describe three broad tiers, not a guarantee that one will win every task: Haiku is positioned for speed and volume, Sonnet for capable everyday work, and Opus for complex tasks requiring more careful judgment. As of October 7, 2026, Anthropic lists Sonnet 5.5 and Opus 5.5 as available; Haiku 5.5 was announced as coming in the weeks after September 28, so its release is not established here.
For a practical choice, start with the complexity and cost of your workload, then compare candidate versions on representative tasks. The names are Anthropic’s intended positioning, not an independent ranking.
Claude Opus vs. Sonnet vs. Haiku: what is the difference?
Anthropic introduced the Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus tiers with Claude 3 in March 2024, describing them as a way to balance intelligence, speed, and cost. Its current descriptions retain that broad distinction:
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| Family | Anthropic’s positioning | Good starting point for |
|---|---|---|
| Haiku | Fast, economical, and suited to high-volume or low-latency use. Anthropic described Haiku 4.5 for real-time tasks such as chat assistants and customer service. | Repeated, latency-sensitive tasks where responsiveness and cost matter, provided the model meets your quality threshold. |
| Sonnet | Capable everyday work. Sonnet 5.5 emphasizes coding, agents, knowledge work, and creating polished documents, slides, and spreadsheets. | General-purpose tasks and routine development; compare it with Opus when a task is unusually difficult or consequential. |
| Opus | Anthropic’s choice for complex work requiring careful judgment, including serious coding and demanding knowledge work. | Harder tasks where any improvement in quality or reliability would justify the added cost and acceptable speed. |
These descriptions indicate where Anthropic intends each tier to fit. They do not establish that every Opus response will be better than every Sonnet response, or that a model will perform equally well across different tasks.
#1 Best Overall
Which Claude model should I use?
Choose based on the work you need done, then test the exact model version on examples that resemble your real workload. A useful comparison considers more than the name or price per token:
- Task difficulty and cost of error: A quick, repeatable task has different needs from a complex analysis or a change to production code.
- Quality on representative work: Check correctness and usefulness on your own examples, not only on a vendor’s general description.
- Latency and throughput: A model that meets your quality threshold sooner, or handles the volume you need, may be the better fit for a workflow.
- Total cost per completed task: Include the tokens used, retries, and any other billed work. Token rates alone do not show how much a task will cost.
- Effort and workflow requirements: Compare relevant thinking or effort settings, and whether your process needs tools, computer use, or long-running execution.
- Version and access route: Confirm the model identifier, region, plan, and platform you intend to use. Availability can differ across products and providers.
- Safety and operational constraints: Check whether the model and workflow meet your organization’s requirements.
For high-volume or latency-sensitive work, start by evaluating Haiku. For broad everyday use, begin with Sonnet. For demanding tasks where careful judgment matters, include Opus in the comparison. If two models are close, run the same representative tasks on both and compare the result quality, completion time, and total token use.
What is the newest Claude model in 2026?
As of October 7, 2026, Anthropic’s reviewed pages list Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Claude Opus 5.5 as available. Anthropic announced Sonnet 5.5 on September 28, 2026, and said Haiku 5.5 was expected to join the 5.5 family “in the coming weeks.” That announcement does not establish that Haiku 5.5 has since been released.
Rank #2
Anthropic describes Sonnet 5.5 as a faster, lower-cost complement to Opus 5.5, aimed at well-scoped everyday work, bug fixing, agents, knowledge work, and polished documents, slides, and spreadsheets. It positions Opus 5.5 for complex work that calls for careful judgment. These are vendor descriptions, not independent performance guarantees.
Anthropic reported that Sonnet 5.5 scored 70.6% on Terminal-Bench 4.0, an agentic coding evaluation, in its September 28, 2026 launch announcement. Treat this as a vendor-reported result for a named evaluation—not a universal measure of model quality or a prediction of performance on your own work.
How Claude’s model versions have changed
This chronology covers major releases and model cards identified in Anthropic’s reviewed pages. A model-card or release listing does not prove that a model remains selectable on every Anthropic product or cloud platform.
| Date | Model or release |
|---|---|
| July 2023 | Claude 2 |
| March 4, 2024 | Claude 3: Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus |
| June 2024 | Claude Sonnet 3.5 |
| October 2024 | Claude 3.5 Haiku and an upgraded Claude Sonnet 3.5 |
| February 2025 | Claude Sonnet 3.7 |
| May 2025 | Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude Opus 4 |
| August 2025 | Claude Opus 4.1 |
| September 29, 2025 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| October 15, 2025 | Claude Haiku 4.5 |
| November 2025 | Claude Opus 4.5 |
| February 5, 2026 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| February 17, 2026 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| April 2026 | Claude Opus 4.7 |
| May 28, 2026 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| June 30, 2026 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| July 2026 | Claude Opus 5 |
| September 22, 2026 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| September 28, 2026 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Expected in the weeks after September 28, 2026 | Claude Haiku 5.5; the reviewed announcement gave an expected timeframe, not confirmation of release. |
Sonnet 4 was released on May 22, 2025, before Sonnet 4.5. Version numbers identify particular generations: a price, benchmark, availability statement, or model card for an earlier version should not automatically be applied to a later one.
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Anthropic’s published rates below are API token prices, not consumer subscription fees or guaranteed costs for completing a task. Sonnet 5.5 rates come from the September 28, 2026 announcement; Opus 5.5 rates are from Anthropic’s family page as reviewed on October 7, 2026.
| Model | Input per 1 million tokens | Output per 1 million tokens | Cache reads per 1 million tokens | Cache writes per 1 million tokens | Model identifier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | $2 | $10 | $0.20 | $2.50 | claude-sonnet-5-5 |
| Claude Opus 5.5 | $4 | $20 | $0.20 | Not stated on Anthropic’s reviewed Opus family page. | claude-opus-5-5 |
Anthropic says Sonnet 5.5 workloads may cost up to 30% less per task than Sonnet 5. That is a workload-dependent claim, not a guaranteed reduction in an individual bill. Opus 5.5 also has a fast mode with separate rates; check Anthropic’s current pricing before using or quoting them.
To estimate a real workflow, measure its input and output token use, cache behavior, and retry rate on the platform you plan to use. A cheaper rate per token does not necessarily mean a lower cost per completed task if the models use different numbers of tokens or attempts.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Where can you use Sonnet 5.5 and Opus 5.5?
Anthropic lists Sonnet 5.5 for Claude.ai on the web, iOS, and Android, as well as the Claude Platform, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Foundry for developers. Anthropic lists Opus 5.5 on the Claude Platform and those three named cloud platforms. These listings do not establish availability in every region, plan, or endpoint; check the service you intend to use.
Consumer chat access and API access are different product routes. API token prices should not be read as Claude.ai subscription prices, and a model’s listing on one platform does not prove it is available through another.
Best Value
How to interpret Claude benchmark claims
Benchmarks can help describe performance on a defined evaluation, but they are not an all-purpose ranking. When considering a benchmark, identify the exact model version, evaluation name, who published the result, the date, and any effort setting reported. Then ask whether the benchmark resembles the task you care about.
Anthropic’s 70.6% Terminal-Bench 4.0 figure for Sonnet 5.5 is specifically a vendor-reported result on an agentic coding evaluation, published September 28, 2026. It can inform a coding-model comparison, but it does not establish that Sonnet 5.5 is best for every kind of coding, writing, analysis, or knowledge work.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
