Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Opus 4.8
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
Claude Opus 4.6
Anthropic · Jan 2026
The first Opus with a 1M-token context window at standard pricing, kicking off Anthropic's rapid 2026 release cadence.
Claude Opus 4.8
Anthropic · May 2026
Anthropic's flagship Opus with adaptive thinking, effort controls and a 1M context — 88.6% on SWE-bench Verified at $5/$25.
The verdict
Claude Opus 4.8 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Claude Opus 4.6.
Benchmark head-to-head 0–1
Specs & pricing
| Claude Opus 4.6 | Claude Opus 4.8 | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | — | — |
| Input price / 1M | $5 | $5 |
| Output price / 1M | $25 | $25 |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Max output | 64K | 64K |
| Open weights | no | no |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image | text, image |
| Knowledge cutoff | Aug 2025 | Mar 2026 |
| Released | Jan 2026 | May 2026 |
| Example monthly cost* | $87.50 | $87.50 |
* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is better, Claude Opus 4.6 or Claude Opus 4.8?
- Claude Opus 4.8 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Claude Opus 4.6.
- Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.6 or Claude Opus 4.8?
- Claude Opus 4.6 costs $5/$25 per million input/output tokens, while Claude Opus 4.8 costs $5/$25. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $87.50 versus $87.50.
- Which model is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.6 or Claude Opus 4.8?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Claude Opus 4.8 scores 88.6% versus ~81.4% for Claude Opus 4.6, making Claude Opus 4.8 the stronger pick for coding agents.
More comparisons
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