Claude Opus 5.5: benchmarks, price and what's new
Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 on 22 September 2026: Fable 5.1-level results on most tasks at $4/$20 per million tokens, about 40% cheaper than Opus 5 on typical work. The numbers, and where it fits for creators.
Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 on 22 September 2026, the first model of its 5.5 family. The headline is price for performance: Anthropic says it matches Claude Fable 5.1 on most tasks, beats it on several agent and coding benchmarks, and costs about 40% less than Opus 5 on typical workloads. Everything below is from Anthropic's announcement unless another source is linked. Opus 5.5 is also in Versely's agent model picker.
The short version
- Model ID:
claude-opus-5-5. - Price: $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens. Cache reads are $0.20 and cache writes $5.
- Fast mode: up to 2.5x the speed, at $8 in and $40 out.
- Speed: output "more than 30% faster than Opus 5".
- Where: claude.ai, the Claude API, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.
- Next: "Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Claude Haiku 5.5 will follow in the coming weeks."
Benchmarks against Opus 5 and Fable 5.1
Anthropic published this comparison. The scores are Anthropic's own.
| Benchmark | What it tests | Opus 5.5 | Opus 5 | Fable 5.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 | Driving a shell to finish tasks | 66.4% | 52.3% | 55.8% |
| FrontierCode v1.1 | Hard coding problems | 54.4% | 48.0% | 50.3% |
| CursorBench 4.0 | Coding inside an editor | 57.8% | 46.6% | 51.8% |
| GDPval-AA v2.1 | Professional knowledge work (Elo) | 1846 | 1708 | 1735 |
| AutomationBench | Multi-step workflow automation | 40.0% | 26.9% | 31.4% |
| OSWorld 2.0 | Operating a desktop computer | 81.8% | 74.0% | 80.7% |
On every row Opus 5.5 beats both its predecessor and Fable 5.1. The biggest jumps over Opus 5 are on terminal work (+14.1 points) and workflow automation (+13.1 points), which is agent work rather than chat.
A caution on comparing these with OpenAI's GPT-6 Sol, which launched the same day. VentureBeat reported Sol at 60.5% on OSWorld 2.0 and 33.2% on AutomationBench 1.0.6. The OSWorld names match, but each lab runs its own harness and settings, and Anthropic's table does not give its AutomationBench version. Treat cross-lab gaps as a reason to test on your own tasks, not as a verdict.
What else changed
Adaptive thinking and effort. Anthropic lists adaptive thinking alongside effort settings, with medium as the default. On Versely the agent can't switch thinking off for Opus 5.5 (the provider requires it), so it runs at low effort for everyday turns.
Writing. Anthropic calls out clearer communication and writing, which matters more to a content team than any coding score.
Prompt-injection resistance. Improved resistance to instructions hidden in web pages and documents. That is relevant when an agent reads a brand's site or a competitor's post before planning.
Safety. Anthropic reports Opus 5.5 "attempted to circumvent boundaries around 85% less often than Opus 5", external testing before release, and EU AI Act watermarking. That last one matters to anyone publishing in the EU after the 2 August 2026 transparency rules.
What it costs to run
At $4 in and $20 out, Opus 5.5 is 20% below Opus 5's list price. Anthropic's "40% less on typical workloads" is a bigger saving than the list cut, so the difference has to come from the model spending fewer tokens on the same work. It is still the premium option. OpenAI's GPT-6 Sol lists at $2 and $10, half the price, and GPT-6 Luna at a twentieth of that. See GPT-6 Sol and Luna: what launched and what it costs.
The practical rule: put your heaviest agent loops and your hardest writing on the strongest model you can afford per task, and put the bulk, clerical work on the cheapest model that gets it right. Price per finished task is the number that matters, and you only learn it by running your own jobs.
Where it fits for a content team
Opus 5.5 is a language model. It writes, plans, reads and calls tools; it does not render video, images or voice. For a creator or a small brand that still covers a lot of the week:
- Briefs and scripts. Turning a product page into five hook-led scripts in your brand voice, the writing Anthropic says improved.
- Agent runs. Planning a campaign, choosing which video model fits each shot, submitting the renders and checking the results. This is the kind of work the Terminal-Bench and AutomationBench gains measure.
- Research you can trust more. Reading a competitor's page without following instructions hidden in it.
The frames still come from a media model. Choosing Opus 5.5 as the planner does not change what a Veo, Kling or Seedance render costs.
Using Opus 5.5 in Versely
Versely's agent plans and makes the content. It reads your brand, drafts the campaign, picks the video, image and voice models, prices everything in credits and asks before it spends. The chat model that does the planning is your choice in the model picker, and Claude Opus 5.5 is now one of the options, on the web and in the app. The picker shows its estimated credits per turn, which are higher than the default model's because Opus 5.5 is a premium model that always thinks.
A sensible pattern is to use Opus 5.5 for the planning and writing turns where quality shows, and a lighter default for quick edits. Open the Versely agent or create a free account to try it.
FAQ
When was Claude Opus 5.5 released?
22 September 2026, as the first model of Anthropic's 5.5 family.
How much does Claude Opus 5.5 cost?
$4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens. Cache reads are $0.20 and cache writes $5 per million tokens. Fast mode is $8 in and $40 out.
Is Opus 5.5 better than Fable 5.1?
On Anthropic's published benchmarks it scores higher on all six it listed, including Terminal-Bench 4.0 (66.4% vs 55.8%) and OSWorld 2.0 (81.8% vs 80.7%). Anthropic's own summary is that it is on par with Fable 5.1 on most tasks and ahead on agentic coding, knowledge work and computer use.
Is Opus 5.5 cheaper than Opus 5?
Yes. Its list price is 20% lower, and Anthropic says it costs about 40% less on typical workloads.
Opus 5.5 or GPT-6 Sol?
Sol is half the list price; Opus 5.5 posts the higher published scores on the benchmarks both labs report, though the labs run them differently. For agent work where a wrong step costs a paid render, test both on your own tasks.
When are Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5 coming?
Anthropic says "in the coming weeks", with no date.
Can I use Claude Opus 5.5 in Versely?
Yes. It is in the Versely agent's model picker, on the web and in the app, billed in credits per turn.