---
title: Anthropic
slug: anthropic
url: "https://toolweight.com/options/anthropic"
homepage: "https://www.anthropic.com"
categories: llm-apis
last_verified: 2026-06-24
license: CC-BY-4.0
---

# Anthropic

> Claude models, built around long agentic runs and tool use

Anthropic sells the Claude family through a first-party API, plus Bedrock, Vertex and Foundry. The current line-up spans Fable 5 at the top, Opus 4.8 as the workhorse and Sonnet 5 for volume, each with a one-million-token input window and a 128K output cap, plus Haiku 4.5 for latency, which is a 200K-window model rather than a million-token one. The platform's distinguishing features are graduated effort control, prompt caching with explicit breakpoints, and a managed agent surface, the things a long tool-calling loop actually needs.

## Identity

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| Name | Anthropic |
| Company | Anthropic |
| One-liner | Claude models, built around long agentic runs and tool use |
| Site | https://www.anthropic.com |
| Docs | https://platform.claude.com/docs |
| Founded | 2021 |
| Funding | Late-stage private |
| Open source | No |
| Brand | https://toolweight.com/vendors/Anthropic |
| Compared in | 1 |

## Where it is compared

### [LLM APIs](https://toolweight.com/compare/llm-apis)
Ranked **#12 of 18** on default weights.
| Field | Value | Confidence | Verified | Source | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Flagship model | Claude Fable 5 (claude-fable-5) | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/models/overview | Opus 4.8 at $5/$25 is the practical default for most builds; Sonnet 5 at $3/$15 list and Haiku 4.5 at $1/$5 cover volume and latency. Two Fable 5 properties do not generalise from the rest of the family: thinking is always on and cannot be disabled, and a request can come back HTTP 200 with stop_reason 'refusal' and empty or partial content, so client code must branch on stop_reason before it reads content. A server-side fallbacks parameter re-runs the same request on another model when that happens, budget for that path rather than discovering it in production. |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/models/overview | Input window. Output is capped separately at 128K. |
| Max output | 128,000 tokens | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/models/overview | 128K on Fable 5, Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 5; Haiku 4.5 caps at 64K. Streaming is required in practice for anything near the ceiling. |
| Image input | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/vision | High-resolution input up to 2576px on the long edge since Opus 4.7; coordinates map 1:1 to image pixels. |
| Audio in/out | ○ | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs | No speech input or output on the Messages API. Pair with a separate ASR/TTS vendor. |
| Open weights | ○ | Inferred | 2026-06-24 | - | - |
| OpenAI-compat API | ◐ | Inferred | 2026-06-24 | - | A chat-completions compatibility layer exists for porting, but tool use, thinking blocks, effort and caching all require the native API. |
| TTFT p50 | - | Unknown | - | - | - |
| Output tok/s | - | Unknown | - | - | - |
| $/M input | $10 /M tok | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/pricing | Fable 5 rate. Opus 4.8 is $5/M, Sonnet 5 $3/M list, Haiku 4.5 $1/M. Sonnet 5 carries an introductory $2/M through 2026-08-31, which is today's actual rate. |
| $/M output | $50 /M tok | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/pricing | Fable 5 rate. Opus 4.8 is $25/M, Sonnet 5 $15/M list, Haiku 4.5 $5/M. Sonnet 5 carries an introductory $10/M through 2026-08-31, which is today's actual rate. |
| $/M cache read | $1 /M tok | Inferred | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/prompt-caching | Cache reads bill at roughly 0.1x input. Writes cost 1.25x at the 5-minute TTL, where two requests break even (1.25x + 0.1x against 2x uncached), and 2x at the 1-hour TTL, where you need three. The longer TTL survives gaps in bursty traffic; the doubled write is what it costs you. |
| Batch discount | 50 % | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/batch-processing | - |
| Tool use | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agents-and-tools/tool-use/overview | Parallel calls on by default; SDK tool runners drive the loop with per-turn approval hooks. |
| Schema output | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/structured-outputs | output_config.format enforces a JSON Schema; strict:true does the same for tool parameters. Recursive schemas and numeric bounds are unsupported. |
| Effort control | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/effort | Five levels, low, medium, high, xhigh, max, plus adaptive thinking. Fixed token budgets were removed on the current generation. |
| Computer use | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agents-and-tools/tool-use/computer-use | Graded yes because the flagship drives it directly and returns coordinates itself. Still a beta, and it needs a beta header, but so does every implementation in this column, so beta status is not what separates yes from partial here. Self-hosted or Anthropic-hosted environments. |
| MCP support | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agents-and-tools/mcp-connector | Anthropic authored MCP. Server connections are available on the Messages API and first-class in Managed Agents. |
| Cache TTL | 5 min default, 1 h option; automatic or explicit breakpoints | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/prompt-caching | Two paths: a top-level automatic setting that caches the last cacheable block, or up to 4 explicit breakpoints when you need to choose the boundary yourself. The minimum cacheable prefix is model-dependent and silently applied, 2048 tokens on the Fable 5 flagship, 4096 on the Opus tier and Haiku 4.5. A prefix under the threshold does not error; it simply never caches. |
| Continuity policy | Published deprecation page lists a retirement date per model, typically months ahead, Opus 3 went on 2026-01-05, Sonnet 3.7 and Haiku 3.5 on 2026-02-19. Older models carried dated snapshot IDs you could pin, but the current generation ships as bare aliases with no dated ID behind them, so the retirement date is your only guarantee. | Inferred | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/model-deprecations | The retirement dates and the alias-only model IDs come straight from Anthropic's deprecation and models pages. The closing sentence, that the date is therefore your only guarantee, is toolweight's reading, not a vendor statement, which is why this cell is graded inferred rather than vendor-claimed. |
| Notice period | 180 days | Inferred | - | - | Observed from published retirement dates rather than a contractual guarantee; recent retirements have run six months or more from announcement. |
| Pinnable versions | ◐ | Vendor-claimed | 2026-06-24 | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/models/overview | Haiku 4.5 and older models expose dated IDs. Fable 5, Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 5 are alias-only. |
| Zero retention | ◐ | Inferred | 2026-06-24 | - | Zero data retention is available to eligible organisations, but Fable 5 requires 30-day retention and rejects requests from ZDR orgs outright. |
| Trains on your data | ○ | Inferred | 2026-06-24 | - | API inputs and outputs are not used to train models by default. |
| AU region | ◐ | Inferred | 2026-06-24 | - | First-party inference_geo covers US and EU residency. AU-resident serving is via Bedrock ap-southeast-2 or Vertex australia-southeast1, not the first-party endpoint. |
| API since | 2023 | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Positioning | Frontier models for long-horizon agentic work and code | Inferred | - | - | - |

**Verdict.** The best platform here for anything that runs a tool loop for more than a few turns, effort control, explicit cache breakpoints and MCP are designed for that shape of work rather than retrofitted. The continuity story regressed with the current generation: dropping dated snapshot IDs means you pin to a published retirement date, not to an immutable model. One flagship-specific trap worth wiring for on day one: Fable 5 can decline a request outright, returning HTTP 200 with stop_reason 'refusal' and no usable content, so a client that reads the first content block unconditionally breaks rather than errors. Anthropic ships a fallbacks parameter that re-runs the request on another model; use it, or handle the stop reason yourself.

## Alternatives

- [Qwen](https://toolweight.com/options/alibaba-qwen), Alibaba's model family, huge open-weight range, closed flagship
- [Amazon Bedrock](https://toolweight.com/options/amazon-bedrock), Multi-vendor model access inside your existing AWS account
- [Cerebras](https://toolweight.com/options/cerebras), Wafer-scale inference, the fastest tokens per second available
- [Cohere](https://toolweight.com/options/cohere), Enterprise-focused models built for RAG and private deployment
- [DeepSeek](https://toolweight.com/options/deepseek), Frontier-adjacent models at a small fraction of Western prices
- [Fireworks AI](https://toolweight.com/options/fireworks-ai), Fast open-weight inference with strong structured-output support
- [Google Gemini](https://toolweight.com/options/google-gemini), Gemini via AI Studio for prototyping or Vertex AI for production
- [Groq](https://toolweight.com/options/groq), Custom LPU silicon serving open-weight models at extreme speed
- [Meta Llama](https://toolweight.com/options/meta-llama), Open-weight Llama models, hosted almost everywhere but Meta
- [Mistral AI](https://toolweight.com/options/mistral-ai), European lab with an open-weight lineage and EU-resident hosting
- [Moonshot AI](https://toolweight.com/options/moonshot-ai), Kimi models, open-weight agentic performance at low cost
- [OpenAI](https://toolweight.com/options/openai), GPT models plus audio, images and embeddings on one bill

## Licence and attribution

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