Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Claude 3 Sonnet

    Comparison

    As of August 20, 2026, Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3 Sonnet have the same blended API cost at $18.00 per 1 million input plus 1 million output tokens. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is $3.00 / $15.00 per million tokens versus Claude 3 Sonnet at $3.00 / $15.00. Source: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing

    Source: Anthropic Claude API pricing (https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing)

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet

    Anthropic

    $18.00blended / 1M

    Input

    $3.00

    Output

    $15.00

    200K ctx|Proprietary
    vs

    Claude 3 Sonnet

    Anthropic

    $18.00blended / 1M

    Input

    $3.00

    Output

    $15.00

    200K ctx|Proprietary

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Claude 3 Sonnet comparison

    Token pricing, specs, and benchmarks side by side

    Metric
    Claude 3.5 Sonnet
    Claude 3 Sonnet
    Provider
    Provider
    Anthropic
    Anthropic
    License
    Proprietary
    Proprietary
    Release Date
    2024-06-21
    2024-02-29
    Pricing (per 1M tokens)
    Input Price0%
    $3.00
    $3.00
    Output Price0%
    $15.00
    $15.00
    Blended (1M + 1M)
    $18.00
    $18.00
    Model Details
    Context Window
    200K
    200K
    Max Output Tokens
    200K
    200K
    Knowledge Cutoff
    April 2024
    August 2023
    Throughput
    78 tok/s
    42 tok/s
    Benchmarks
    59.4%
    40.4%
    54.0%
    40.6%
    6.5%
    2.5%
    90.4%
    79%
    68.3%
    53.1%
    89%
    92%
    73%
    71.1%
    43.1%
    93.2%
    93.1%
    82.9%
    17.5%
    87.1%
    78.9%
    96.4%
    92.3%
    47.9%
    91.6%
    83.5%
    76.1%
    56.8%
    27.5%
    60%
    75.1%
    Benchmark Wins
    Claude 3.5 Sonnet 12|0 Claude 3 Sonnet

    Verdict

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Claude 3 Sonnet: the bottom line

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet offers both lower pricing and stronger benchmark performance across the board, making it the clear value leader in this comparison.

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Claude 3 Sonnet FAQ

    Which is cheaper, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Claude 3 Sonnet?

    As of August 20, 2026, Claude 3.5 Sonnet is 0% cheaper on blended LLM API pricing. Claude 3.5 Sonnet costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens ($18.00 blended 1M-in + 1M-out). Claude 3 Sonnet costs $3.00 / $15.00 per million tokens ($18.00 blended). Sources: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing and https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing. The cheapest LLM for your app still depends on how many output tokens you generate.

    How much does Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Claude 3 Sonnet cost per million tokens?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet Claude API pricing from Anthropic is $3.00 input and $15.00 output per million tokens via Anthropic. Claude 3 Sonnet Claude API pricing from Anthropic is $3.00 input and $15.00 output per million tokens via Anthropic. Use those four numbers, not ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro subscription prices, when you are comparing APIs.

    Which is better for coding, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Claude 3 Sonnet?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet has a published SWE-bench Verified score of 49%. Claude 3 Sonnet does not have that eval on this page yet.

    What is the context window for Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Claude 3 Sonnet?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet supports a 200K token context window, while Claude 3 Sonnet supports 200K tokens. Both models have the same context window size. Filling a larger window bills more input tokens, so the cheaper-per-million model can still cost more on long documents.

    Which model performs better on benchmarks, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Claude 3 Sonnet?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet leads on 12 of 12 shared benchmarks versus Claude 3 Sonnet's 0 wins. Check the comparison table for GPQA Diamond, SWE-bench, MMLU, HLE, and the other evals we track. Token price and benchmark score together are the usual LLM comparison, not either number alone.

    Is Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Claude 3 Sonnet better for production use?

    Both Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3 Sonnet are production API models. For cost-sensitive production traffic, Claude 3.5 Sonnet has better economics on the blended 1M-in + 1M-out scale. For maximum capability, weight the benchmark table for your domain. Many production stacks route cheap models for drafts and a frontier model for the hard turn, which is usually cheaper than sending everything to the expensive API.

    Can I switch between Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3 Sonnet in my app?

    Yes. Call Claude 3.5 Sonnet through Anthropic and Claude 3 Sonnet through Anthropic with separate API keys, or through a gateway that already wraps both. Keep prompts in tokens, not characters, when you estimate the invoice. AnotherWrapper templates can swap providers without rewriting auth and billing.

    How accurate is this Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Claude 3 Sonnet pricing data?

    List rates are the latest published Claude API pricing from Anthropic and Claude API pricing from Anthropic, quoted per million tokens. Official rate sheets: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing and https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing. Prompt caching, batch APIs, and committed-use discounts can change the invoice. Benchmark scores are from official publications and independent evals, updated as new numbers land.

    What is the output token limit for Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3 Sonnet?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet supports up to 200K output tokens per request, while Claude 3 Sonnet supports up to 200K output tokens. Output tokens are usually the expensive half of API pricing, so a higher max output cap is a capability, not a discount.

    Which model has better throughput, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Claude 3 Sonnet?

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet runs at approximately 78 tokens/second while Claude 3 Sonnet runs at 42 tokens/second. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is faster in raw throughput. Throughput (tokens per second) and time-to-first-token are why two models with the same per-million-token price can still feel different in chat and agents.

    How do I switch the models in this Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Claude 3 Sonnet comparison?

    Use the model pickers at the top of this LLM comparison. Search any model in the index and the URL updates. Open Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Claude 3 Sonnet from the sidebar for the single-model API pricing page, or go back to the LLM pricing table to sort by cheapest blended cost.

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Claude 3 Sonnet pricing

    This comparison covers API pricing, context window, throughput, and benchmark scores. Claude 3.5 Sonnet costs $3.00/M input and $15.00/M output. Claude 3 Sonnet costs $3.00/M input and $15.00/M output.

    Rank both on the LLM leaderboard, SWE-bench, and Humanity's Last Exam.

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