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opus 5 vs opus 5.5
Opus 5 vs Opus 5.5 put through three tough reasoning puzzles: identical outcomes, 43%–69% lower spend, and roughly 11% faster token streaming.
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Putting Opus 5 vs Opus 5.5 to the Test
Anthropic claims Opus 5.5 trims spend and streams tokens faster than Opus 5. Our tests ask whether those Opus 5 vs Opus 5.5 gains survive real reasoning workloads.
- What Anthropic PromisesThe marketing promises a 40% smaller bill, over 30% quicker output, and reasoning on par with Claude Fable 5.1 instead of lagging behind the older Opus.
- New API Price SheetThe newer model charges $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens, versus $5 and $25 before — worth a 20% cut by itself.
- How We Tested the Reasoning TasksThe same prompts hit both models via the Anthropic API with adaptive thinking at default effort, one pass per puzzle per model.
Our Opus 5 vs Opus 5.5 Test Setup
Three demanding puzzles, a single pass per model, and tokens, latency, and list-price spend recorded on each call.
Opus 5 vs Opus 5.5: The Numbers Side by Side
Spend, token volume, streaming speed, and failure behaviour captured across every Opus 5 vs Opus 5.5 reasoning run.
Grid Accuracy
Both models filled all 28 cells correctly, though the newer one flagged that it had not formally shown its answer to be unique.
Token Economy
On the stone game the newer model emitted 62% fewer output tokens, and on the logic grid it spent 43% less — mostly by saying less.
Streaming Speed
Averaged over every call, the newer model streamed 103.4 tokens per second versus 93.1, roughly 11% quicker, peaking at a 19% lead on one puzzle.
Spend Per Puzzle
The logic grid ran $0.16 against $0.27, the stone game $0.58 against $1.88, and the full test suite totalled $10.50.
Where Both Models Stumble
Neither model solved the ordering task; each may spend close to 20 minutes reasoning and return no text at all, and the newer one ended on a refusal stop reason.
When to Reach for a Code Tool
If a problem boils down to counting, the ordering test included, give the model a code execution tool instead of trusting its arithmetic reasoning.
Opus 5 vs Opus 5.5: Questions Answered
Straight answers on Opus 5 vs Opus 5.5 pricing, streaming speed, reasoning quality, and safe ways to control spend.
Does Opus 5.5 cost less than Opus 5?
It does. Spend fell 43% on the logic grid and 69% on the stone game, driven mainly by a smaller volume of generated tokens.
Does Opus 5.5 stream faster than Opus 5?
Roughly 11% quicker across the board, with a best-case 19% on one puzzle — short of the 30% Anthropic advertises.
Is Opus 5.5 smarter at reasoning?
Not on this evidence. The pair were indistinguishable across the three tasks: both solved the logic grid and the stone game, and both failed the constrained orderings puzzle.
Why did Opus 5.5 reject a harmless prompt?
The ordering test ended on a refusal stop reason with no output, most likely a safety filter misfiring on an innocuous request.
Should I move to Opus 5.5?
If you already run Opus 5, the upgrade keeps hard-reasoning answers identical while cutting both the bill and the wait — just cap output length first.
How can I keep costs down on hard tasks?
Cap output tokens and monitor spend, because either model can think for about 20 minutes, return nothing, and still bill you for the tokens.
Run the Opus 5 vs Opus 5.5 Trials on Your Own Stack
Grab the published prompts, test both models in your own environment, then switch to the newer one with a hard output cap to lock in the savings.