Head-to-head
Claude Opus 4.7 vs Claude Opus 4.5: which AI model wins in 2026?
Claude Opus 4.7 ($25/1M out) and Claude Opus 4.5 ($25/1M out) are two of the most-used AI models in 2026. Across 3 community votes, Claude Opus 4.7 leads with 57% approval.
Quick verdict
On Reasoning, pick Claude Opus 4.7: the arena rates it 4.5/5 against 3.5/5 for Claude Opus 4.5. Both start at the same price: $25/1M out.
Line-by-line comparison
Strengths and weaknesses
Claude Opus 4.7
- 87.6% SWE-bench Verified (up from 80.8% on Opus 4.6) and 64.3% SWE-bench Pro at launch, ahead of GPT-5.4 (57.7%) and Gemini 3.1 Pro (54.2%)
- 1M-token context window and 128K max output at flat $5/$25 pricing with no long-context premium (300K output via Batch API beta)
- First Claude with high-resolution vision: accepts images up to 2576px on the long edge with pixel-accurate coordinates, ~3x prior detail
- Standout code review: finds more real bugs with stronger cross-file reasoning than rivals in independent tests, and 21% fewer document-reasoning errors than Opus 4.6
- Fine cost control via new xhigh effort level and Task Budgets (beta): low-effort 4.7 roughly matches medium-effort 4.6 output quality
- Recent knowledge: reliable cutoff of January 2026, the freshest of any Claude model at release
- New tokenizer inflates token counts roughly 30% for the same text versus pre-4.7 models (per Anthropic's own docs), raising effective per-request cost despite the unchanged sticker price
- Very verbose in agentic use: one benchmark found GPT-5.5 used 72% fewer output tokens on equivalent coding tasks, and reviewers call its narration over-communicative
- Breaking API changes bite migrators: temperature/top_p/top_k and thinking budget_tokens now return 400 errors, and thinking text is hidden by default
- Moderate latency with minutes-long turns at high effort; fast mode is a premium research preview already deprecated on 4.7
- Superseded by Opus 4.8 at the same $5/$25 within ~3 months, and real-time cybersecurity safeguards can false-positive on legitimate security work
Claude Opus 4.5
- First model past 80% on SWE-bench Verified (80.9% at launch), beating Gemini 3 Pro and GPT-5.1 on real-world coding
- 66% price cut vs Opus 4.1 ($5/$25 vs $15/$75 per 1M tokens) made Opus-tier viable for production workloads
- 48-76% fewer output tokens than Sonnet 4.5 at matched or better quality, compounding the price cut
- Effort parameter (introduced with this model) lets devs trade reasoning depth for cost and latency per call
- Strong hands-on reports: one-shot complex refactors, caught race conditions other models missed, converged in ~4 agentic iterations vs ~10 for rivals
- +29% on Vending-Bench vs Sonnet 4.5, with fewer dead-ends on long-horizon autonomous tasks
- 200K context window only (64K max output), far behind the 1M of Gemini 3 Pro and later Claude models; users reported selective attention above ~70% context fill
- Gated to $100-200/month Max tiers in Claude apps at launch; Pro subscribers were locked out and heavy users still hit limits (HN called it 'penny-wise and pound-foolish')
- Moderate latency; extended thinking adds cost and delay on simple tasks
- Superseded since early 2026: Opus 4.6/4.7/4.8 cost the same $5/$25 with 1M context and higher benchmarks, leaving 4.5 no price advantage
- Legacy API surface: manual budget_tokens extended thinking rather than the adaptive thinking of newer Claude models
Cast your verdict
One recommendation per tool per gladiator. It reshapes the crowd score everyone sees.
The arena’s verdict on Claude Opus 4.7
Choose Opus 4.7 only if you are already pinned to it for reproducibility: Opus 4.8 costs the same $5/$25, keeps an identical API surface, and outperforms it, making it the better default for new projects. It remains a very strong pick for agentic coding, code review and 1M-context document work, and is a clear upgrade over Opus 4.6. Teams migrating from 4.6 should budget for breaking API changes and a tokenizer that yields roughly 30% more tokens per prompt. Cost-sensitive users should look at Sonnet 5, which delivers near-Opus quality at $3/$15 (intro $2/$10 through August 31, 2026).
The arena’s verdict on Claude Opus 4.5
Pick Claude Opus 4.5 only if you have a workload already tuned and pinned to this snapshot (claude-opus-4-5-20251101) and need stability. It was a landmark release, the first past 80% on SWE-bench Verified and a 66% price cut over Opus 4.1, but Anthropic now sells Opus 4.6 through 4.8 at the identical $5/$25 rate with a 1M context window and better scores. Anyone starting a new project should choose Opus 4.8 instead, and cost-sensitive users get near-Opus coding from Sonnet 5 at $3/$15 (intro $2/$10 through Aug 2026). Avoid it entirely if your prompts approach the 200K context ceiling.
What the crowd says
On Claude Opus 4.7
“Watch your invoices. New tokenizer counts ~30% more tokens for the same text, and it narrates every tiny step. Sticker price unchanged, effective cost definitely not.”
“Came from 4.6 and stopped chunking repos entirely. 1M context, 128K output, flat $5/$25 with no long-context premium. That pricing decision alone won me over.”
“87.6 SWE-bench Verified is not just marketing, it closes tickets GPT-5.4 fumbles. And the hi-res vision with pixel-accurate coords finally makes screenshot debugging useful.”
On Claude Opus 4.5
No verdicts yet. Be the first to speak.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Opus 4.7 better than Claude Opus 4.5?
The crowd currently sides with Claude Opus 4.7: 57% recommend it, versus 50% for Claude Opus 4.5 (3 votes). On Reasoning, Claude Opus 4.7 rates higher (4.5/5 vs 3.5/5). The right pick depends on your use case. The line-by-line comparison on this page breaks down pricing, key specs and arena ratings.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.7 or Claude Opus 4.5?
They cost the same to start: both begin at $25/1M out.
How much do Claude Opus 4.7 and Claude Opus 4.5 cost per 1M tokens?
Claude Opus 4.7: $5/1M in per 1M input tokens, $25/1M out per 1M output tokens. Claude Opus 4.5: $5/1M in per 1M input tokens, $25/1M out per 1M output tokens.