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BleepingComputer
Anthropic rolls out Sonnet 5 with near-Opus 4.8 performance at a lower price
Anthropic has released its latest AI model, Sonnet 5, which approaches the performance of its flagship model, Opus 4.8, but at a significantly lower price. This new model is touted to have advanced features that allow greater agentic capabilities, such as planning and tool usage, which were previously exclusive to the Opus range. Sonnet 5's upgraded performance makes it particularly attractive for users requiring coding assistance, research, and automation tasks.
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Published 1 Jul 2026, 00:50 UTC3 min read
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Summary
TL;DR
- Sonnet 5 offers near Opus 4.8 performance at a lower cost.
- Features advanced planning and tool usage capabilities.
- API pricing starts at $2 per million input tokens.
- Available to all subscription levels: Free, Pro, and Max.
- Testers report significant improvements over previous Sonnet models.
Interesting facts
- Sonnet 5 is designed to make agentic AI capabilities accessible at a competitive price.
- Users can adjust performance effort levels between Sonnet 5 and Opus 4.8.
- Benchmarking from companies shows clear performance gains for Sonnet 5.