❯ Anthropic launches Claude Sonnet 5.5: over 30% faster output and up to 30% lower cost per task

Same price, thinner billIn its launch post, Anthropic says Claude Sonnet 5.5, released September 28, generates output more than 30% faster than Sonnet 5 and costs up to 30% less per task. Prices are unchanged from Sonnet 5, at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, with cache reads at $0.20, so the savings come from finishing sooner and using fewer tokens and tool calls, not from a price cut. The model is live on AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, and Anthropic says Haiku 5.5 will follow in the coming weeks.

The top setting burns the most tokensIndependent testing paints a more complicated picture. On Artificial Analysis’s Intelligence Index, Sonnet 5.5 (max) ranks second, above GPT-6 Astra (max) and behind only Opus 5.5. But it uses about 193,000 output tokens per task, the most the firm has measured and roughly seven times GPT-6 Astra (max); lower effort settings offer a wider range of price-performance trade-offs. Anthropic says Claude apps default to medium effort and its developer platform to high.

Risky cyber tasks fall backAnthropic adds that when Sonnet 5.5 meets higher-risk cybersecurity tasks it will visibly fall back to Sonnet 5, and it will soon expand its verification program for cyber defenders. For developers who use Claude Code daily, the direct gain is shorter waits and longer-lasting quota: Claude Code lead Boris Cherny showed it fixing a bug and said it was 30% faster with 30% less usage. Companies budgeting per task should check their chosen effort level, not just the advertised reduction.

▪ SIGNALThe price war has moved to a new battlefield: the per-token price can stay flat while the total cost of getting one thing done becomes the bill that counts.