Claude 3 Opus vs Claude Opus 4.6
Compare Anthropic and Anthropic AI models
Cost Comparison (1000 input + 500 output tokens, 100 requests/day)
Claude 3 Opus
Claude Opus 4.6
Cost Differences
Claude Opus 4.6 costs less than Claude 3 Opus
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Claude 3 Opus | Claude Opus 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Input Price | $15.00/1M tokens | $5.00/1M tokens |
| Output Price | $75.00/1M tokens | $25.00/1M tokens |
| Context Window | 200,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Max Output | 4,096 tokens | 128,000 tokens |
| Category | flagship | flagship |
| Capabilities | textvisionreasoning | textvisionreasoningcode |
| Release Date | 3/4/2024 | 2/5/2026 |
Claude 3 Opus vs Claude Opus 4.6: Which Should You Choose?
Choosing between Claude 3 Opus and Claude Opus 4.6 depends on your priorities: cost efficiency, context length, or raw capability. Claude Opus 4.6 is the more affordable option at $5.00/1M input tokens — 67% cheaper than Claude 3 Opus. Meanwhile, Claude Opus 4.6 offers a significantly larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens vs 200,000 for Claude 3 Opus.
Both models are in the flagship category, making this a direct head-to-head comparison. At scale — say 10,000 requests per day — the cost difference adds up: Claude Opus 4.6 would save you roughly $10,500.00/month compared to Claude 3 Opus. For startups and indie developers, that difference can be significant.
Output costs matter too. Claude 3 Opus charges $75.00/1M output tokens vs $25.00 for Claude Opus 4.6. For generation-heavy workloads (content creation, code generation, summarization), output pricing often dominates your bill. Claude Opus 4.6 has the edge here at $25.00/1M output tokens.
Multimodal capabilities: Both models support vision (image understanding), so you can send images alongside text prompts with either option.
Best Use Cases
Choose Claude 3 Opus when:
- • You're already using Anthropic's API ecosystem
Choose Claude Opus 4.6 when:
- • Budget is a primary concern
- • You need a larger context window (1,000,000 tokens)
- • You need more capabilities (code)
- • You need longer outputs (up to 128,000 tokens)
- • You're already using Anthropic's API ecosystem
Try Different Scenarios
Use the calculator below to see how costs change with different usage patterns
Claude 3 Opus (Anthropic)
Claude Opus 4.6 (Anthropic)
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