Claude Fable 5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Fable 5 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 are both current anthropic production-tier models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 is meaningfully cheaper at $3 / $15 per 1M. Claude Fable 5 leads on coding, reasoning, general knowledge.
Specs side by side
| Metric | Anthropic Claude Fable 5 | Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Input price (per 1M) | $10 | $3 |
| Output price (per 1M) | $50 | $15 |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1M tokens |
| Speed tier | slow | balanced |
| Open weights | No | No |
| EU region | Yes | Yes |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Prompt caching | Yes | Yes |
| Vision input | Yes | Yes |
| Extended thinking | Yes | Yes |
When to choose each
Choose Claude Fable 5 if…
- Coding is central to your workload
- Reasoning is central to your workload
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.6 if…
- Cost is a priority ($3 / $15 per 1M vs $10 / $50 per 1M)
Benchmark delta
Claude Fable 5 leads on
- Coding
- Reasoning
- General knowledge
- Vision
Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads on
Claude Sonnet 4.6 has no meaningful benchmark lead in this pair.
FAQ — Claude Fable 5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Fable 5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 — which is better?
Claude Fable 5 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 are both current anthropic production-tier models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 is meaningfully cheaper at $3 / $15 per 1M. Claude Fable 5 leads on coding, reasoning, general knowledge. The right pick depends on your use case — see "When to choose each" above for a data-driven decision.
How does Claude Fable 5 pricing compare to Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Claude Fable 5 costs $10 / $50 per 1M vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 at $3 / $15 per 1M. Claude Sonnet 4.6 is cheaper on output tokens by roughly 233%. Both support prompt caching, which reduces effective cost by 80-90% on repeat system prompts.
Does Claude Fable 5 or Claude Sonnet 4.6 have the bigger context window?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a 1M-token context window — 1× the 1M context of Claude Fable 5. Enough for entire codebases, books, or multi-document RAG.
Is there a free tier for Claude Fable 5 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Claude Fable 5: no — No free API tier; available via Claude.ai paid plans. Claude Sonnet 4.6: no — Free via Claude.ai web chat; API requires paid credits.
Which is better for coding — Claude Fable 5 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Claude Fable 5 leads on coding benchmarks (Claude Fable 5: 98/100, Claude Sonnet 4.6: 94/100). For production coding agents also weigh tool-use performance — Claude Fable 5 scores 97, Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores 96.