HEAD-TO-HEAD · FLAGSHIP-TIER · VERIFIED NOVEMBER 6, 2026

Claude Fable 5 or Claude Opus 5.5 — which one actually saves you money?

Claude Fable 5 and Claude Opus 5.5 both ship a 1M-token context window, but their price tags diverge sharply: $10/$50 per million tokens versus $4/$20. For nearly identical capability tiers, that's a 2.5x gap on every token processed, in or out.

Spec	Claude Fable 5	Claude Opus 5.5
Input / 1M tokens	$10.00	$4.00
Output / 1M tokens	$50.00	$20.00
Context window	1M	1M

The output price gap

The output-token gap is where the real money moves. Fable 5 charges $50 per million output tokens against Opus 5.5's $20 — a $30 difference per million. For output-heavy workloads like long-form generation, agentic coding, or reasoning-heavy chains where output volume dominates the bill, Opus 5.5's output rate alone makes it the far cheaper choice, independent of input costs.

Context window

Both models offer a 1M-token context window and a 128K max output ceiling, so there's no architectural tradeoff here — you aren't paying Fable 5's premium for more headroom. Context capacity is a wash; the entire cost delta comes down to per-token pricing, not capability.

Worked example

At 100M input and 30M output tokens in a month: Fable 5 costs (100 x $10) + (30 x $50) = $1,000 + $1,500 = $2,500. Opus 5.5 costs (100 x $4) + (30 x $20) = $400 + $600 = $1,000. That's a $1,500 monthly gap, with Opus 5.5 running at just 40% of Fable 5's total cost for the same workload.

Prices from the LLM Price Watch daily tracker, 2026-11-06. Prices change; use the calculator with your own usage for an exact comparison, or see the full price table for every tracked model.

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Fable 5 still available to use?

Yes, but it's labeled legacy on Anthropic's documentation, with Claude Fable 5.1 positioned as the recommended upgrade path. Fable 5.1 carries the same $10/$50 per million token pricing, so switching versions won't change your costs, only your model behavior and knowledge cutoff.

Why is Claude Opus 5.5 so much cheaper than Claude Fable 5?

Opus 5.5 launched in September 2026 as a newer, more efficient flagship at $4/$20 per million tokens, roughly 60% cheaper than Fable 5's $10/$50 rate on both input and output. Anthropic's own comparisons show Opus 5.5 also outperforming Fable 5.1 on benchmarks despite the lower price.

Do both models have the same context window?

Yes, both Claude Fable 5 and Claude Opus 5.5 support a 1M-token context window with a 128K-token max output limit. Since context capacity is identical, the pricing difference isn't buying you extra room to work with — it's purely a per-token rate difference.

Which model is cheaper for output-heavy tasks like coding agents?

Claude Opus 5.5 is cheaper across the board, but the gap widens further on output-heavy work since its $20/M output rate is less than half of Fable 5's $50/M. For long agentic sessions or large generated responses, Opus 5.5 delivers substantially lower bills.