Claude Fable 5 vs Claude Sonnet 5

Anthropic's frontier flagship against Anthropic's mid-tier — published pricing, context windows and specs, side by side.

Compiled by AI Model Hub · Last updated 8 July 2026 · All figures from the two models' AI Model Hub pages (vendor release materials and independent trackers)

At a glance: Claude Fable 5 lists at $10 / $50 per 1M tokens with a 1,000,000 tokens context window; Claude Sonnet 5 lists at $2 / $10 intro (to 31 Aug 2026) · $3 / $15 standard with 1,000,000 tokens of context. The full spec table, price table and each model's published benchmarks are below.

On this page

Side-by-side specs
Price comparison
What the table says
FAQ

Claude Fable 5 vs Claude Sonnet 5: side-by-side

	Claude Fable 5	Claude Sonnet 5
Maker	Anthropic	Anthropic
Released	9 June 2026 · back globally 1 July 2026	30 June 2026
Tier	Frontier flagship	Mid-tier
Context window	1,000,000 tokens (default & max)	1,000,000 tokens (default & max)
Max output	Up to 128,000 tokens	Up to 128,000 tokens
API price (per 1M)	$10 / $50 per 1M tokens	$2 / $10 intro (to 31 Aug 2026) · $3 / $15 standard
Access	Proprietary — Claude API, claude.ai, Claude Code, AWS Bedrock, Google Cloud, Microsoft Foundry	Proprietary — Claude API & claude.ai (default model on Free & Pro plans)
Best at	Hardest reasoning and agentic tasks	Agentic coding, high-volume production work, large-codebase tasks
Standout	Anthropic's most capable released model; falls back to Opus 4.8 on some topics (<5% of sessions)	1M context by default; early-access partners report it finishes tasks earlier Sonnets stopped short on and checks its own output

Price comparison

Model	Input (per 1M)	Output (per 1M)
Claude Fable 5	$10.00	$50.00
Claude Sonnet 5 (intro, to 31 Aug 2026)	$2.00	$10.00
Claude Sonnet 5 (standard, from 1 Sep 2026)	$3.00	$15.00

Estimate your monthly API cost for Claude Fable 5 vs Claude Sonnet 5 with the LLM API pricing calculator →

What the table says

Pricing. Claude Fable 5 lists at $10 / $50 per 1M tokens; Claude Sonnet 5 lists at $2 / $10 intro (to 31 Aug 2026) · $3 / $15 standard. On these published rates, Claude Sonnet 5's input price is 5x lower than Claude Fable 5's, and Claude Sonnet 5's output price is 5x lower than Claude Fable 5's. Claude Sonnet 5's standard rate card from 1 September 2026 is $3 / $15 per 1M tokens.
Context. Both are in the same context class: Claude Fable 5 lists 1,000,000 tokens (default & max) and Claude Sonnet 5 lists 1,000,000 tokens (default & max).
Access. Both are proprietary, hosted-API models; neither publishes weights for self-hosting.

Key takeaway

Everything above is drawn from the two models' published rate cards and spec sheets. Which one fits depends on the workload you price it against — run your own token volumes through the pricing calculator to see the monthly difference.

Full Claude Fable 5 overview Full Claude Sonnet 5 overview

Frequently asked questions

Which is cheaper, Claude Fable 5 or Claude Sonnet 5?

Claude Sonnet 5 — it lists at $2 / $10 intro (to 31 Aug 2026) · $3 / $15 standard versus $10 / $50 per 1M tokens for Claude Fable 5.

Which has the bigger context window, Claude Fable 5 or Claude Sonnet 5?

They are in the same class: Claude Fable 5 lists 1,000,000 tokens (default & max) and Claude Sonnet 5 lists 1,000,000 tokens (default & max).

Which model is newer?

Claude Sonnet 5 is the more recent release (30 June 2026); Claude Fable 5 was released 9 June 2026 · back globally 1 July 2026.

Can I run Claude Fable 5 or Claude Sonnet 5 locally?

No — both Claude Fable 5 and Claude Sonnet 5 are proprietary models accessed through their vendors' APIs and apps; neither publishes weights.

Related comparisons

Sources & further reading: