Claude Sonnet 5.5 promises faster work without cutting token prices
Anthropic says Sonnet 5.5 generates output over 30% faster and uses fewer tokens per task. The headline savings come from efficiency, while standard input and output prices stay unchanged.
Anthropic launched Claude Sonnet 5.5 on September 28 for coding, document creation and other everyday professional tasks. It is available on the Claude Platform and through Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.
The important pricing detail is that Sonnet's standard rates remain $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens. Anthropic's claim of up to 30% lower cost per task comes from using fewer tokens, rather than a reduction in those rates. It also reports output generation more than 30% faster than Sonnet 5.
Anthropic presents Sonnet as the faster companion to Opus 5.5, while still favoring Opus for difficult, open-ended work.
For API users, the model identifier is claude-sonnet-5-5. Existing integrations that disable thinking need to review the migration guidance: Anthropic directs them to the new between_tools setting.