Updated 27 March 2026
Claude API vs OpenAI API Pricing
OpenAI is 17-81% cheaper per token depending on model tier. But Claude's coding quality and longer context window often justify the premium. The right choice depends on your use case.
All Models Compared
| Provider | Model | Input/M tokens | Output/M tokens | Context | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | Claude 3.5 Haiku | $0.80 | $4.00 | 200K | High-volume, cost-sensitive tasks. Classification, extraction, routing. |
| Anthropic | Claude Sonnet 4 | $3.00 | $15.00 | 200K | Best balance of quality and cost. Coding, analysis, writing. |
| Anthropic | Claude Opus 4 | $15.00 | $75.00 | 200K | Most capable. Complex reasoning, agentic coding, research. |
| OpenAI | GPT-4o-mini | $0.15 | $0.60 | 128K | Cheapest mainstream model. Simple tasks, chat, summarisation. |
| OpenAI | GPT-4o | $2.50 | $10.00 | 128K | Versatile. Good at everything, slightly cheaper than Sonnet. |
| OpenAI | o1 | $15.00 | $60.00 | 200K | Extended reasoning. Math, science, complex logic. |
| OpenAI | o1-mini | $3.00 | $12.00 | 128K | Reasoning at lower cost than full o1. |
Head-to-Head by Task
| Task | Claude Cost | OpenAI Cost | Cheaper | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General chat (1K tokens) | $0.019 (Sonnet) | $0.013 (4o) | OpenAI (-32%) | Similar. Both excellent. |
| Code generation (2K tokens) | $0.036 (Sonnet) | $0.025 (4o) | OpenAI (-31%) | Claude generally produces cleaner code. |
| Agentic coding (10K tokens) | $0.18 (Sonnet) or $0.90 (Opus) | $0.13 (4o) or $0.75 (o1) | OpenAI | Claude Code (Opus) leads for autonomous multi-step coding. |
| High-volume extraction (batch) | $0.40/M (Haiku) | $0.075/M (4o-mini) | OpenAI (-81%) | GPT-4o-mini is cheaper but Haiku handles edge cases better. |
| Long document analysis (100K) | $0.30 (Sonnet, 100K input) | $0.25 (4o, 100K input) | OpenAI (-17%) | Claude's 200K context handles longer docs natively. |
| Complex reasoning (math/logic) | $0.90 (Opus, 4K) | $0.30 (o1-mini, 4K) | OpenAI (-67%) | o1 family is specifically designed for reasoning chains. |
The honest recommendation.
For cost-optimised batch processing, OpenAI (GPT-4o-mini) wins on price. For coding and agentic workflows, Claude (Sonnet/Opus) produces higher-quality results that reduce the need for retries. For math and reasoning, OpenAI's o1 family is purpose-built. Most production systems use both providers for different tasks, with fallback to the other if one has an outage.