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Claude Pricing Explained (2025): Sonnet, Opus, and Haiku Costs

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Why Claude Pricing Is Token-Based (and How to Read It)

Claude models charge separately for input tokens (your prompt/context) and output tokens (the model’s generated text). Prices are usually quoted “per 1M tokens,” so you’ll convert to per-1K tokens for quick math.

  • Input tokens: what you send (system prompt, user messages, tool outputs)
  • Output tokens: what Claude writes back
  • Common approximations:
    • 1 token ≈ 4 characters
    • 1 token ≈ 0.75 words (so 100 words ≈ 130–150 tokens)
    • Quick estimate: tokens ≈ words × 1.33

Formula you’ll use in every estimate:

  • Cost ≈ (input_tokens × input_price_per_token) + (output_tokens × output_price_per_token)
  • With per-1K units: Cost ≈ (input_k × input_price_per_1K) + (output_k × output_price_per_1K)

2025 Snapshot: Claude Sonnet, Opus, and Haiku Costs

Prices vary by provider. Below are reference points you can use today.

Claude Sonnet 4

  • Wisdom-Gate (per 1M tokens):
    • Input: $2.40
    • Output: $12.00
    • Source: Wisdom-Gate pricing comparison (20% lower vs OpenRouter)
  • OpenRouter (per 1M tokens):
    • Input: $3.00
    • Output: $15.00
  • Per-1K tokens (easy math):
    • Wisdom-Gate: $0.0024 input, $0.012 output
    • OpenRouter: $0.0030 input, $0.015 output

What it means in practice: Sonnet is the balanced, general-purpose Claude for most workloads—solid reasoning, good latency, and predictable costs.

Claude Opus (baseline reference)

  • Anthropic baseline (typical 2024–2025 range used by many resellers):
    • Input: ~$15 per 1M
    • Output: ~$75 per 1M
  • Per-1K tokens:
    • ~$0.015 input, ~$0.075 output

Opus is the premium reasoning tier. It’s 5× the output price of Sonnet in this baseline, so reserve Opus for complex tasks where quality or reliability gains outweigh price.

Claude Haiku (baseline reference)

  • Anthropic baseline (typical 2024–2025 range used by many resellers):
    • Input: ~$0.25 per 1M
    • Output: ~$1.25 per 1M
  • Per-1K tokens:
    • ~$0.00025 input, ~$0.00125 output

Haiku is the fast, low-cost tier for high-throughput, short outputs, or light classification/extraction.

Why two sets of numbers?

  • Wisdom-Gate provides specific Sonnet 4 pricing and highlights ~20% savings vs OpenRouter.
  • For Opus and Haiku, exact Wisdom-Gate rates may vary by availability and time; use the Anthropic baseline to plan and verify current provider prices before deployment.

Provider Comparison: OpenRouter vs Wisdom-Gate

For Claude Sonnet 4:

  • OpenRouter: $3.00 input / $15.00 output (per 1M)
  • Wisdom-Gate: $2.40 input / $12.00 output (per 1M)
  • Savings: ~20% lower on both input and output with Wisdom-Gate

If your traffic is mostly short prompts and moderate outputs, you’ll feel the savings primarily on the output side (since outputs are usually costlier than inputs).

Note: The same savings pattern is shown for GPT-5 in Wisdom-Gate’s comparison table, suggesting a consistent discount strategy across supported models. Always confirm in the provider’s portal before large-scale commits.

Per-1K Token Cheat Sheet

  • Claude Sonnet 4 (Wisdom-Gate):
    • Input: $0.0024 per 1K
    • Output: $0.0120 per 1K
  • Claude Sonnet 4 (OpenRouter):
    • Input: $0.0030 per 1K
    • Output: $0.0150 per 1K
  • Claude Opus (baseline):
    • Input: ~$0.0150 per 1K
    • Output: ~$0.0750 per 1K
  • Claude Haiku (baseline):
    • Input: ~$0.00025 per 1K
    • Output: ~$0.00125 per 1K

Use these to do “back-of-the-napkin” math quickly.

Worked Examples: Real Costs You’ll See

To estimate costs, we’ll assume token counts and convert to per-1K math.

Example A: Short chat turn

  • Scenario: 600 input tokens, 350 output tokens
  • Sonnet 4 (Wisdom-Gate):
    • Input: 0.6 × $0.0024 = $0.00144
    • Output: 0.35 × $0.0120 = $0.00420
    • Total ≈ $0.00564
  • Sonnet 4 (OpenRouter):
    • Input: 0.6 × $0.0030 = $0.00180
    • Output: 0.35 × $0.0150 = $0.00525
    • Total ≈ $0.00705
  • Opus (baseline):
    • Input: 0.6 × $0.0150 = $0.00900
    • Output: 0.35 × $0.0750 = $0.02625
    • Total ≈ $0.03525
  • Haiku (baseline):
    • Input: 0.6 × $0.00025 = $0.00015
    • Output: 0.35 × $0.00125 = $0.00044
    • Total ≈ $0.00059

Takeaway: The choice of model tier can swing per-call costs by an order of magnitude or more.

Example B: Long analysis

  • Scenario: 8,000 input tokens, 2,000 output tokens
  • Sonnet 4 (Wisdom-Gate):
    • Input: 8 × $0.0024 = $0.0192
    • Output: 2 × $0.0120 = $0.0240
    • Total ≈ $0.0432
  • Sonnet 4 (OpenRouter):
    • Input: 8 × $0.0030 = $0.0240
    • Output: 2 × $0.0150 = $0.0300
    • Total ≈ $0.0540
  • Opus (baseline):
    • Input: 8 × $0.0150 = $0.1200
    • Output: 2 × $0.0750 = $0.1500
    • Total ≈ $0.2700
  • Haiku (baseline):
    • Input: 8 × $0.00025 = $0.0020
    • Output: 2 × $0.00125 = $0.0025
    • Total ≈ $0.0045

Takeaway: Opus is powerful but pricey; use it for critical reasoning bursts, not routine summarization.

Example C: Batch of 100 short emails

  • Scenario per email: 500 input tokens, 150 output tokens
  • Totals: 50,000 input; 15,000 output
  • Sonnet 4 (Wisdom-Gate):
    • Input: 50 × $0.0024 = $0.1200
    • Output: 15 × $0.0120 = $0.1800
    • Total ≈ $0.3000
  • Sonnet 4 (OpenRouter):
    • Input: 50 × $0.0030 = $0.1500
    • Output: 15 × $0.0150 = $0.2250
    • Total ≈ $0.3750
  • Opus (baseline):
    • Input: 50 × $0.0150 = $0.7500
    • Output: 15 × $0.0750 = $1.1250
    • Total ≈ $1.8750
  • Haiku (baseline):
    • Input: 50 × $0.00025 = $0.0125
    • Output: 15 × $0.00125 = $0.0188
    • Total ≈ $0.0313

Takeaway: For high-throughput content that doesn’t need top-tier reasoning, Haiku or Sonnet will drastically reduce costs.

Quick API Start (Wisdom-Gate)

Use the AI Studio to try prompts before writing code:

Base URL and example endpoint:

Example request with Claude Sonnet 4:

curl --location --request POST 'https://wisdom-gate.juheapi.com/v1/chat/completions' \
--header 'Authorization: YOUR_API_KEY' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Accept: */*' \
--header 'Host: wisdom-gate.juheapi.com' \
--header 'Connection: keep-alive' \
--data-raw '{
    "model":"wisdom-ai-claude-sonnet-4",
    "messages": [
      {
        "role": "user",
        "content": "Hello, how can you help me today?"
      }
    ]
}'

Tips for cost-aware calls:

  • Keep system prompts compact; reuse them across calls
  • Stream output to stop early if you got what you need
  • Limit maximum output length (if the API exposes a max tokens setting)

Most LLM APIs include a usage section in responses (e.g., input_tokens and output_tokens). Use those to log and reconcile costs.

How to Estimate Cost Before You Call

  1. Estimate tokens:
  • tokens ≈ words × 1.33
  • Include all context (system prompt, tools, previous messages)
  1. Convert to per-1K tokens:
  • Example: Sonnet 4 (Wisdom-Gate) input is $0.0024 per 1K, output is $0.012 per 1K
  1. Multiply:
  • Cost ≈ (input_k × price_input_1K) + (output_k × price_output_1K)
  1. Add headroom:
  • Add 10–20% buffer for retries and slightly longer outputs

Which Claude Model Should You Use?

Choose Sonnet if

  • You need strong general reasoning at modest cost
  • You have mixed workloads (agents, chat, RAG) and care about responsiveness
  • You want predictable costs with a wide capability envelope

Choose Opus if

  • You need the highest reasoning quality for complex planning or multi-step analysis
  • You’re comfortable paying a premium to avoid errors in critical paths
  • You use it selectively for hard cases; otherwise fall back to Sonnet/Haiku

Choose Haiku if

  • You need speed and throughput for classification, extraction, short replies
  • You process large volumes where pennies per thousand tokens matter
  • You can tolerate slightly weaker reasoning on tough edge cases

Cost-Control Tactics That Actually Work

  • Trim context aggressively
    • Summarize previous turns instead of pasting entire transcripts
    • Move long reference docs to retrieval (RAG) and fetch only relevant chunks
  • Cap output length
    • Set reasonable maximum tokens; encourage concise formats (bullets, JSON-like structures)
  • Use the right tier
    • Haiku for short, easy tasks; Sonnet for most; Opus only where it pays for itself
  • Cache and reuse
    • Memoize frequent prompts; store results for repeated queries
  • Compress tool outputs
    • If tools produce verbose JSON, send only necessary fields
  • Batch when possible
    • Group similar requests to reduce overhead and improve throughput
  • Watch temperature
    • Lower temperature often reduces verbose detours and token spend
  • Measure and iterate
    • Log input/output tokens per route; set budgets and alerts

Planning Budgets With Realistic Assumptions

  • Daily traffic forecast: estimate users × requests × average tokens
  • Mix of models: percentage split among Haiku, Sonnet, Opus based on task routing
  • Retries and guardrails: factor 5–15% extra for timeouts, validation retries
  • Contingencies: account for spikes during launches or data ingestion

Example monthly plan (Sonnet-heavy app):

  • 1M requests/month
  • Average per request: 700 input, 300 output tokens
  • Totals: 700M input, 300M output
  • Sonnet 4 (Wisdom-Gate):
    • Input: 700 × $2.40 / 1M = $1,680
    • Output: 300 × $12.00 / 1M = $3,600
    • Subtotal: $5,280
  • Add 10% buffer: ~$5,808 total

Switching that workload to OpenRouter would be ~20% higher on both input and output, i.e., roughly $6,960 before buffer—this is where provider choice materially moves your budget.

Caveats and How to Stay Accurate in 2025

  • Provider prices change
    • Always confirm in your vendor dashboard or API docs before large deployments
  • Model generations evolve
    • “Claude Sonnet 4” is the SKU shown in Wisdom-Gate’s endpoint; Opus/Haiku may have generation updates that shift price or quality
  • Billing granularity
    • Some vendors round up in blocks; monitor usage fields and monthly statements
  • Long contexts
    • Big prompts/attachments explode input tokens; consider chunking and RAG

FAQ

Are prices the same across regions?

  • Often similar, but some providers adjust prices per region or currency. Check your account’s billing locale.

How do I reduce output token costs?

  • Request concise formats (bullets, numbered lists). Use system instructions to prefer short answers. Set max output tokens when available.

Can I predict cost from words?

  • Yes, with approximations. tokens ≈ words × 1.33. Then apply per-1K token rates.

What if I need occasional Opus quality?

  • Route hard tasks to Opus and everything else to Sonnet or Haiku. This hybrid approach delivers most of Opus’s value at a fraction of its cost.

Does Wisdom-Gate support all Claude tiers?

  • Sonnet 4 is explicitly supported. For Opus and Haiku, check availability and current pricing in the AI Studio or API docs.

Bottom Line

  • Sonnet 4 via Wisdom-Gate is ~20% cheaper than OpenRouter for both input and output
  • Opus delivers top-tier reasoning at a premium; use it surgically where ROI is clear
  • Haiku is the throughput champion for short, easy tasks
  • Do the math per-1K tokens and keep context tight—your budget will thank you

Links and references: