Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5 pricing cut signals a shift in the enterprise AI market

Anthropic has launched Claude Opus 4.5 with a 67% price cut that repositions its flagship model from a boutique offering to a production-ready enterprise tool.

The new pricing of $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens — down from $15 and $75 — brings Anthropic closer to OpenAI and Google while maintaining a premium position.

The launch comes a week after Google released Gemini 3 and less than two weeks after OpenAI launched GPT-5.1, underscoring the rapid pace of competition in enterprise AI. For context, OpenAI’s GPT-5.1 costs $1.25 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, while Google’s Gemini 3 Pro runs $2 to $4 per million input tokens.

“Opus 4.5 is a meaningful step forward in what AI systems can do,” the company said in an announcement on its website.

The benchmark debate

Anthropic claimed Opus 4.5 achieved 80.9% on Software Engineering Benchmark Verified, outperforming OpenAI’s GPT-5.1-Codex-Max at 77.9%, Google’s Gemini 3 Pro at 76.2%, and its own Sonnet 4.5 at 77.2%. The company also said the model scored higher on its internal two-hour performance engineering assessment than any human candidate who has taken the exam.

But analysts cautioned that benchmark scores tell only part of the story. “Benchmark scores often look impressive but mean very little once a model enters production,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research. “They are clean, simple, and run in isolation. Most enterprise systems are layered with legacy software, inconsistent workflows, and regulatory overhead.”

Leslie Joseph, principal analyst at Forrester, noted that while Anthropic’s lead is statistically significant, “the gap between these models has narrowed to the point where winner-takes-all metrics are less relevant than considerations of best architectural fit.”

The real evaluation criteria for enterprises, according to Gogia, are different: “Can the model work with an organization’s legacy tools? Will it maintain accuracy across long sequences? Is it stable under load? These are the details that matter more than a score on a public leaderboard.”

Strategic pricing shift

Beyond performance claims, Anthropic’s pricing strategy marks a significant repositioning. The pricing reduction represents more than cost competition. “Previously, the Opus line was viewed as a ’boutique’ model, too expensive for general automated workflows,” Joseph said. “By slashing prices significantly, Anthropic is undercutting the specialized enterprise models of its rivals, signaling that ‘frontier intelligence’ is no longer a scarce resource.”

The company said prompt caching can reduce costs by up to 90% and batch processing offers 50% savings. These optimization features matter for enterprise deployments where predictable costs and resource management drive adoption decisions.

“Anthropic’s updated pricing is not about joining a race to the bottom,” Gogia said. “The new rates bring Claude closer to competitors, but the value proposition remains clear. This model is built for enterprises that care more about stability and trust than token volume.”

The model offers a 200,000-token context window — roughly 150,000 words — and is available through Anthropic’s API, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud Vertex AI, and Microsoft Foundry. According to the announcement, Opus 4.5 is “built for professional software engineering, complex agentic workflows, and high-stakes enterprise tasks.”

Where it fits in enterprise workflows

The technical specifications translate to specific enterprise use cases. Internal testers at Anthropic reported that Opus 4.5 completed tasks that were difficult for Sonnet 4.5 and handled ambiguous requirements without extensive guidance, according to the announcement. In the announcement, the company acknowledged its performance engineering test doesn’t measure collaboration, communication, or professional judgment developed through experience.

Analysts identified specific use cases where the model’s capabilities align with enterprise needs. “Given the model’s specific enhancements in agentic coding and reliable document synthesis, software engineering and document-heavy departments such as legal or compliance are clear beneficiaries,” Joseph said.

Gogia emphasized the model’s suitability for precision-focused roles: “Legal teams, software architects, policy writers, and compliance officers will see the most impact. These are the areas where accuracy matters more than speed.”

Deepika Giri, head of research for big data and AI at IDC Asia/Pacific, said the combination of competitive pricing and efficiency is accelerating enterprise adoption. “Advanced safety and auditability features make Anthropic particularly well-suited for compliance-focused industries and regulated use cases,” Giri said.

Developer tools and integrations

Beyond the core model improvements, Anthropic expanded its developer toolset.  Anthropic expanded Claude Code, its terminal-based development environment, with an enhanced plan mode. “Plan Mode now builds more precise plans and executes more thoroughly — Claude asks clarifying questions upfront, then builds a user-editable plan.md file before executing,” the company said in the announcement.

The tool is now available in Anthropic’s desktop application. Claude Opus 4.5 is also available in GitHub Copilot for Pro, Pro+, Business, and Enterprise users, according to a GitHub changelog.

For paid users, “long conversations no longer hit a wall — Claude automatically summarizes earlier context as needed, so you can keep the chat going,” the announcement said. Claude for Chrome, which operates across browser tabs, is now available to all Max subscribers. Claude for Excel moved to general availability for Max, Team, and Enterprise users, the announcement added.

What enterprises should weigh

For organizations evaluating AI platforms, the decision extends beyond per-token pricing. “Procurement teams must weigh ecosystem fit,” Joseph said. “For instance, a company deeply integrated into Google Workspace might find Gemini’s multimodal capabilities offer more practical value, even with a slightly lower coding score.”

Gogia noted that cost considerations in regulated industries differ from pure API economics. “In industries where a single misstep can trigger compliance issues or downstream rework, the true cost is not the API bill. It is the cleanup. For those teams, paying more for fewer problems is a trade that makes sense.” The launch marks Anthropic’s third major model release in two months, following Sonnet 4.5 in September and Haiku 4.5 in October.