Claude Opus 5 vs Fable 5
On the rate card, Opus 5 is half the price: $5 in / $25 out per million tokens against Fable 5's $10 / $50. On a metered task the gap narrows, because Opus 5 spends more tokens doing the same job.
Prices are provider list rates, July 2026. Task bills are our own metered runs, not token math.
Claude Opus 5
Launched Jul 24, 2026, same card as Opus 4.8
$5 / $25 in / out, per Mtok
- This task, metered
- $0.1158Same fixed prompt on every model, run the same day, priced from the provider's own bill, not token estimates. Raw outputs are in the Fable 5 pricing breakdown.
- Tokens on this task
- 4,610Tokens billed on the identical task in the July 2026 run. Opus 4.8 spent 2,877 on the same job.
- Output over input
- 5x
Fable 5
The frontier model, API-only since Jul 7
$10 / $50 in / out, per Mtok
- This task, metered
- $0.1462Same fixed prompt on every model, run the same day, priced from the provider's own bill, not token estimates. Raw outputs are in the Fable 5 pricing breakdown.
- Access
- API usage creditsFable 5 left the Claude subscription plans on Jul 7, 2026. Subscriptions had carried weekly usage limits since summer 2025, metered in 5-hour session windows.
- Output over input
- 5x
The tale of the tape, receipts included. Any number with an i button carries its method note; hover it, tap it, or tab to it.
The short version
One task, two bills
The fixed dashboard build we meter every model against. Bars scale to the bills; flip to the rate card to see why the card alone misleads.
Half the rate bought a 21% smaller bill, not a 50% one. The blend ran the same task for $0.0196; receipts on the model card.
Upper bar is the input rate, lower bar the output rate, dollars per million tokens.
No fixed card. The blend picks a provider per request and bills the tokens it used.
Output tokens bill at five times input on both cards. Verbose models feel that multiplier; the metered view shows the result.
At 25 tasks a day, picking Opus 5 over Fable 5 saves $22.80 a month on this task. Routing it through the blend saves $94.95.
Straight multiplication: tasks a day, times 30, times the metered per-task bill. Your tasks will differ. Meter them.
The token catch nobody prices
Half the rate is not half the bill. Opus 5 wrote about 60% more tokens than Opus 4.8 on the same job, and Fable 5 bills every one of its tokens at double Opus rates. If you are choosing between these two on price, the only honest comparison is a metered task, and the metered gap here is 21%, not 50%.
Claude Opus 5
4,610 tokensClaude Opus 4.8
2,877 tokensThe whole field, July 2026
| Model | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fable 5 | $10 | $50 | $0.1462 | Left Claude subscription plans Jul 7; API usage credits |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | $5 | $30 | not run | Output prices at 6x input on this card |
| Claude Opus 5 | $5 | $25 | $0.1158 | Launched Jul 24; same card as Opus 4.8 |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | $5 | $25 | $0.0724 | The previous flagship |
| Kimi K3 | $3 | $15 | queued | API live Jul 16; cache-hit input $0.30; flat across context |
| Terra | $2.50 | $15 | not run | |
| Sonnet 5 | $2 | $10 | $0.0410 | Intro card to Aug 31; then $3 / $15 |
| Luna | $1 | $6 | not run | |
| Haiku 4.5 | off-list | off-list | $0.0162 | Metered in the same run; its card is not tracked on this page |
| Pareto, the blend | credits | credits | $0.0196 | Blended per request; receipts on the model card |
Rates move. Dated changes are on the timeline below, and the biggest scheduled one has a countdown.
How the prices moved
Jul 24: Opus 5 launches
Opus 5 launched at $5 / $25, the same card as Opus 4.8. Same rates, different token appetite: 4,610 tokens against 2,877 on our fixed task.
Next scheduled move: Sonnet 5 intro pricing ends Sep 1, 2026.
Method and caveats
How the metered bills are made
One harness, every model, the same day: identical prompts, standard retries, no per-model tuning. Cost is read off the provider's bill per completed task, never estimated from token math. The model card publishes seven same-harness benchmarks with both bills, losses included.
Why the rate card alone misleads
Cards price tokens; bills price behavior. On the identical task, Opus 5 billed 4,610 tokens where Opus 4.8 billed 2,877, about 60% more, on the same rates. Output tokens run 5 to 6x input across the July cards, so verbosity compounds fast.
The second task we meter
A fixed game build, metered the same way: Fable 5 billed $0.2269, the blend billed $0.0220. Task shape moves bills more than rate cards do, which is why we publish per-task receipts instead of one blended average.
What routing adds in latency
Twenty streamed runs, gateway against direct: median time to first token was 68ms slower through the gateway, and p95 through the gateway beat direct. The routing tax is measurable, small, and published.
New head-to-heads land by email first
Same harness, both models, bills published beside scores. One email per matchup, the day it lands. Nothing else.
One request in, one answer out: the blend picks per request, so you skip this choice entirely.
Get your credits matched