Launch at a glance
Release date, pricing, speed and default settings in one table.
10 itemsLaunch at a glance
Release date, pricing, speed and default settings in one table.
10 itemsRelease date, pricing, speed and default settings in one table.
| Item | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Release date | 2026-09-22. The first model in the Claude 5.5 family | Anthropic announcement |
| In one line | Fable 5.1 level on most tasks, running cost 40% lower than Opus 5 | Anthropic announcement |
| Price | $4 input and $20 output per million tokens (the units AI reads and writes text in). Opus 5: $5 and $25 | Anthropic announcement |
| Cache reads | $0.20 per million tokens. 60% lower than Opus 5 ($0.50) | Anthropic announcement |
| Speed | Output generation over 30% faster than Opus 5 | Anthropic announcement |
| Defaults | Default reasoning effort (how much it thinks before answering, low to max) changed to medium (high on Opus 5). Thinking always on | Developer docs |
| Also changed | Higher 5-hour usage limit for Pro, Max and Team, plus one usage limit reset to use whenever you want | @claudeai |
| Claude Code | Default Opus model changed to Opus 5.5 (CHANGELOG 2.1.280) | anthropics/claude-code |
| Reaction to the announcement | X announcement post: 12.91M views, 76K likes. Reddit r/ClaudeAI announcement post: 1,750 points | X post |
| Same-day rival | OpenAI also released GPT-6 Sol and Luna the same day | 9to5Google |