Model Routing
Calculator
Right model. Right cost. Test the fit.
Not every task needs the most expensive model. Configure your workload parameters below for a starting hypothesis and token-cost estimates for four specific Claude models. These tiers are editorial heuristics, not measured quality rankings. Validate accuracy, reliability, and latency on your own workload.
Workload Parameters
Quick presets
Recommendation
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5
$9.00
per month
Routing Strategy
Start with Tier 2 (Claude Sonnet 5) in a representative evaluation. Compare with Tier 3 (Claude Opus 5.5) on the same cases before deploying. Use validators and human review where needed.
Daily calls
100
Cost per call
<$0.01
Latency
Benchmark it
Monthly calls
3,000
Token Cost Comparison — Sample Models
USD standard global Claude API rates checked 2026-09-27. Official pricing. 30-day month; no caching or batch discount. Include all billable output/thinking and tool tokens in your inputs. Excludes tool fees, retries, hosting, tax, fast mode, and regional premiums. Tokenizers and context limits vary by model. Same workload (100 calls/day, 500 in / 200 out tokens)
Claude Haiku 4.5
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Opus 5.5
Claude Fable 5.1
Per 1M tokens pricing
| Tier | Models | Input | Output | Monthly Est. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| T1 | Claude Haiku 4.5 | $1 | $5 | $4.50 |
| T2 | Claude Sonnet 5 | $2 | $10 | $9.00 |
| T3 | Claude Opus 5.5 | $4 | $20 | $18.00 |
| T4 | Claude Fable 5.1 | $10 | $50 | $45.00 |
Go Deeper
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Knox writes weekly on AI strategy, engineering leadership, and the systems behind intelligent automation. Signal over noise.