AI model APIs · head-to-head
Claude Fable 5 vs Claude Opus 4.8
Same usage, official rates, ranked by nothing but price. Both rate cards, the monthly bill at five workloads, and the exact usage mix where the answer flips.
The pricing verdict Claude Opus 4.8 is cheaper than Claude Fable 5 at every input:output mix — there is no usage pattern where Claude Fable 5 costs less.
Rate cards
| Per 1M tokens | Claude Fable 5 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
|---|---|---|
| Input | $10 | $5 |
| Cached input | $1 | $0.50 |
| Output | $50 | $25 |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
Monthly cost at five workloads
| Workload | Tokens / month | Claude Fable 5 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prototype | 1M in · 0.3M out | $25 | $12.5 |
| Small app | 10M in · 3M out | $250 | $125 |
| Production app | 50M in · 15M out | $1,250 | $625 |
| High volume | 200M in · 60M out | $5,000 | $2,500 |
| Heavy platform | 1B in · 300M out | $25,000 | $12,500 |
Standard on-demand rates from each provider's official pricing page, verified July 2026; figures exclude caching and batch discounts and any long-context surcharges. Claude Fable 5: Cached-input reads bill at ~10% of the input rate; cache writes carry a 1.25× premium. Claude Opus 4.8: Cached-input reads bill at ~10% of the input rate. Price is one input — quality, latency and context limits differ. Confirm live pricing before committing.