Claude Sonnet 5
The mid-tier Claude 5 model, positioned as the best balance of speed, intelligence and price, and the cheapest current model with a 1M-token context window.
Last verified August 21, 2026 · 3 sources
Claude Sonnet 5 is the model most production workloads should default to. It is a third cheaper than Sonnet 4.6 on input, carries the same 1M-token context window as Opus 5, and Anthropic positions its performance as close to Opus 4.8.
The pricing story matters here
Sonnet 5 launched at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, described at the time as introductory pricing running through 31 August 2026, with a scheduled increase to $3/$15 on 1 September 2026.
That increase was cancelled. As of 10 August 2026 the documentation records $2/$10 as the standard price and states explicitly that the September increase “will not occur.”
This is exactly the kind of change that quietly invalidates a cost model built three months earlier — and the reason every page here carries a verification date.
What it does
Text and image input, text output, vision, multilingual and tool use, with adaptive thinking enabled. Anthropic describes it as “the most agentic Sonnet model yet”, with meaningfully better tool use, agentic search and computer use than Sonnet 4.6.
Its cybersecurity capabilities are described as substantially reduced relative to the Opus models — a deliberate safety property, not an oversight.
What it does not do
Like every model from Claude Opus 4.7 onward, Sonnet 5 does not accept temperature, top_p or
top_k, and does not support the thinking.type: "enabled" parameter.
Specifications
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Claude API ID | claude-sonnet-5 |
| Amazon Bedrock ID | anthropic.claude-sonnet-5 |
| Google Cloud ID | claude-sonnet-5 |
| Context window | 1M tokens |
| Max output | 128K tokens (300K on the Batch API with the extended-output beta header) |
| Adaptive thinking | Yes |
| Reliable knowledge cutoff | January 2026 |
Pricing
| Rate | Price per million tokens |
|---|---|
| Input | $2 |
| Output | $10 |
| 5-minute cache write | $2.50 |
| 1-hour cache write | $4 |
| Cache read | $0.20 |
| Batch input / output | $1 / $5 |
Lifecycle
Active, tentative retirement not sooner than 30 June 2027.
Comparisons
Sources
- 01Introducing Claude Sonnet 5Officialanthropic.comAnnouncement, dated 30 June 2026.
- 02Models overview — Claude Platform DocsOfficialplatform.claude.com
- 03Pricing — Claude Platform DocsOfficialplatform.claude.comIncludes the note that the introductory $2/$10 rate became permanent.
Page changelog
- ChangedThe introductory $2/$10 rate became the standard price. The increase to $3/$15 previously scheduled for 1 September 2026 was cancelled.
- AddedClaude Sonnet 5 released with a 1M-token context window and introductory pricing of $2/$10 per million tokens.