comparison tier in Anthropic's lineup. Here's when the price actually makes sense, and when you're better off downgrading.
Use Opus when: the task output is worth >$5/decision and quality matters more than throughput.
Use Sonnet when: you're making >100 calls/day or the task is routine for the model.
Most teams running Opus vs Sonnet cost comparison 24/7 are over-using the tier. Audit reveals which requests actually needed this model and which would have worked on the tier below. Run the free audit →
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