Claude vs GPT Cost — Head-to-Head Across Volume Tiers
For the same workload, Claude Opus 4.7 ($15 input / $75 output per million tokens) costs roughly 12× more than GPT-5 ($1.25 / $10 per million) but sits at a similar quality tier. Claude Sonnet 4.6 ($3 / $15) and GPT-5 mini ($0.25 / $2) trade more closely. The actual monthly bill depends on your input-to-output ratio, your volume, and whether you use prompt caching. freeaicostcalculator.app lets you model this directly.
Claude vs GPT — list pricing as of 2026-05
| Model | Input $/M | Output $/M | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4.7 | $15 | $75 | 1M |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | $3 | $15 | 1M |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | $1 | $5 | 200K |
| GPT-5 | $1.25 | $10 | 400K |
| GPT-5 mini | $0.25 | $2 | 400K |
| GPT-4.1 | $3 | $12 | 1M |
Volume tier examples
At 10,000 requests/month with 500 input + 200 output tokens average (light product usage):
- Claude Opus 4.7: ~$225/mo
- Claude Sonnet 4.6: ~$45/mo
- GPT-5: ~$26/mo
- GPT-5 mini: ~$5/mo
At 1,000,000 requests/month with the same per-request profile (production scale):
- Claude Opus 4.7: ~$22,500/mo
- Claude Sonnet 4.6: ~$4,500/mo
- GPT-5: ~$2,625/mo
- GPT-5 mini: ~$525/mo
Use the workload sliders on freeaicostcalculator.app to plug in your real numbers and see the bar chart instantly.
How to think about Claude vs GPT cost
Don't pick on price alone. Run the same prompts through both at freeprompttester.app to see how quality compares on your actual task — sometimes Claude Opus produces a single concise correct answer where GPT-5 needs three retries, making the apparent "12× more expensive" actually break even. Cost per useful answer matters more than cost per call.
Try freeaicostcalculator.app — Free, No Sign-Up
Workload-driven. 370+ models. Flat-plan break-even check. Pure arithmetic in your browser.
Open AI Cost Calculator →Frequently Asked Questions
Is Claude really more expensive than GPT for the same task?
List pricing yes — Opus is 12× more per million tokens than GPT-5. But effective cost (cost per useful answer) depends on quality on your task. For some workloads Claude's quality justifies the premium; for others GPT-5 mini is the right pick at a fraction of the cost.
Does Anthropic's prompt caching close the gap?
Anthropic's prompt cache offers up to 90% discount on the cached portion of input. For input-heavy workloads (long system prompts, RAG) it changes the math significantly. The calculator's 50% cache toggle is a conservative middle estimate.
Which Claude model competes with GPT-5 mini?
Claude Haiku 4.5 ($1/$5) is the closest direct competitor to GPT-5 mini ($0.25/$2). Haiku is more expensive but typically scores higher on reasoning. Run both through the calculator at your workload to see the spread.
Does it include prompt caching?
Yes — toggle on the homepage for a 50% effective discount on input. Models the typical cached-prompt savings.
Can I add a third model to compare?
Yes. Pick up to 12 models in the picker. Common Claude vs GPT setups also add Gemini 2.5 Pro and Grok 4 for full coverage of frontier models.
What about Claude Pro and ChatGPT Plus subscriptions?
The flat-plan break-even card on the homepage shows your projected API spend alongside Claude Pro $20, Claude Max $100/$200, ChatGPT Plus $20 and ChatGPT Pro $200. For light personal usage, a flat plan is almost always cheaper.