Claude Sonnet 5 benchmarks, pricing and specs
Claude Sonnet 5 is an Anthropic model released on June 30, 2026 that takes text input and produces text. It costs $2 per 1M input tokens and $10 per 1M output tokens and accepts up to 1,000,000 tokens of context. It scores 1461 Elo on Arena Text, #25 of 39 current models (Arena, measured October 8, 2026).
- Per 1M input tokens
- $2
- Per 1M output tokens
- $10
- Context window
- 1M
- Arena Text
- 1461 Elo · #25/39
Data verified October 12, 2026 · Dataset 2026-10-12
Key facts
- Provider
- Anthropic
- Model family
- Claude Sonnet
- Release date
- June 30, 2026
- Status
- Current
- Access
- API only
- API model id
- Not reported
- Context window
- 1,000,000 tokens
- Max output
- 128,000 tokens
- Input
- text
- Output
- text
- Task families
- text
- Declared capabilities
- reasoning
Claude Sonnet 5 pricing
It is the #12 most expensive of 37 current text models priced per 1M input tokens.
Independent benchmark results
Scores come from independent evaluators that ran the model themselves, pinned to a dated snapshot. Rank is among current models in the same snapshot. Anthropic's own launch figures are listed under strengths with the publisher named, because they are not measured the same way.
| Benchmark | Score | Rank | Measured | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arena Text | 1461 Elo | #25 of 39 | October 8, 2026 | Arena · 2026-10-12 |
| GPQA Diamond | 90.5% | #23 of 37 | October 12, 2026 | Epoch AI · 2026-10-12 |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2) | 65.6% | #24 of 37 | October 12, 2026 | Epoch AI · 2026-10-12 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 33.7% | #27 of 34 | October 12, 2026 | Epoch AI · 2026-10-12 |
| LiveBench Overall | 74.85 points | #4 of 5 | June 25, 2026 | LiveBench · 2026-06-25 |
Strengths, cautions and best uses
Strengths
- Claude Sonnet 5 is positioned for agentic execution, tool use, coding, and knowledge work
Cautions
- The launch price is introductory through 2026-08-31; refresh pricing before evaluating workloads after that date
Best for
- Agentic coding evaluations with current introductory API pricing
Alternatives to Claude Sonnet 5
The closest current textmodels by price. The cheapest model that scores as well or better is listed first; failing that, the cheapest one within 3% of the benchmark's scale.
Cheaper, same or higher score
DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
- 85% cheaper per 1M input tokens, $0.30 vs $2
- 14 points higher on Arena Text, 1475 vs 1461
- From DeepSeek
GPT-4.1
- Same price per 1M input tokens, $2
- 46 points lower on Arena Text, 1415 vs 1461
- From OpenAI
GPT-5.6 Terra
- Same price per 1M input tokens, $2
- 5 points higher on Arena Text, 1466 vs 1461
- From OpenAI
Grok 4.5
- Same price per 1M input tokens, $2
- 5 points higher on Arena Text, 1466 vs 1461
- 500K context window vs 1M
- From xAI
Compare Claude Sonnet 5 with
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-4.1
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.4
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.6 Terra
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-6.1 Sol
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-6 Sol
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.5
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.6
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.7
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs Qwen3.8-Max
Articles about Claude Sonnet 5
Other Claude Sonnet models
Claude Sonnet 5 FAQ
How much does Claude Sonnet 5 cost?
Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2 per 1M input tokens and $10 per 1M output tokens at the standard tier. It is the #12 most expensive of 37 current text models priced per 1M input tokens. Source: Anthropic, verified October 11, 2026.
What is the context window of Claude Sonnet 5?
Claude Sonnet 5 accepts up to 1,000,000 tokens of context. It can return up to 128,000 tokens in one response. That ranks #24 of 44 current text models by context length.
How does Claude Sonnet 5 score on independent benchmarks?
Claude Sonnet 5 scores 1461 Elo on Arena Text, #25 of 39 current models (Arena, measured October 8, 2026), 90.5% on GPQA Diamond, #23 of 37 current models (Epoch AI, measured October 12, 2026) and 65.6% on FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2), #24 of 37 current models (Epoch AI, measured October 12, 2026). These are independent evaluations, not Anthropic's own launch figures.
Is Claude Sonnet 5 open source or API only?
Claude Sonnet 5 is available through Anthropic's API only; its weights are not published.
What are the best alternatives to Claude Sonnet 5?
The closest current alternatives by price and measured performance are DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash (85% cheaper per 1M input tokens, $0.30 vs $2), GPT-4.1 (same price per 1M input tokens, $2), GPT-5.6 Terra (same price per 1M input tokens, $2) and Grok 4.5 (same price per 1M input tokens, $2).
Sources
- Introducing Claude Sonnet 5 · Anthropic · official · verified August 7, 2026
- Claude API pricing · Anthropic · official · verified October 11, 2026
- LiveBench 2026-06-25 task results · LiveBench · independent · verified August 7, 2026 · Apache-2.0
- Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub data (benchmark_data.zip) · Epoch AI · independent · verified October 12, 2026 · CC-BY-4.0
- Arena leaderboard dataset (lmarena-ai/leaderboard-dataset) · Arena · independent · verified October 12, 2026 · CC-BY-4.0
Cite this page
Van Data Team. "Claude Sonnet 5 Benchmarks, Pricing and Specs." AI Model Benchmark Dataset 2026-10-12. https://vandatateam.com/ai-model-benchmarks/claude-sonnet-5
Reuse the data: JSON · CSV · or explore every model in the AI model benchmark comparison.
Production evaluation
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