Claude Opus 4.5 Max vs Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Opus 4.5 Max and Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning has the stronger average benchmark score; Claude Opus 4.5 Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Opus 4.5 Max
Claude Opus 4.5 Max is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $20.90 per million input tokens and $106.51 per million output tokens, and averages 87.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $20.90 / 1M
- Output
- $106.51 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 87.8
- Open weights
- No
Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning
Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $20.91 per million input tokens and $108.13 per million output tokens, and averages 88.2 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $20.91 / 1M
- Output
- $108.13 / 1M
- Context
- 2,000,000
- Avg score
- 88.2
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Opus 4.5 Max | Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $20.90 | $20.91 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $106.51 | $108.13 | A |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 2,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 16,384 | 16,384 | Tie |
| Average score | 87.8 | 88.2 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1501.9 | 1497.5 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Opus 4.5 Max wins 4, Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning wins 7, and 1 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.5 Max | Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 89.5 | 90.7 | 1.2 | Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond | 84.6 | 82.6 | 2.0 | Claude Opus 4.5 Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 79.5 | 79.5 | 0.0 | Tie |
| HumanEval | 91.7 | 92.1 | 0.4 | Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning |
| MATH-500 | 94.2 | 91.6 | 2.6 | Claude Opus 4.5 Max |
| AIME 2025 | 89.3 | 88.9 | 0.4 | Claude Opus 4.5 Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 80.6 | 81.8 | 1.2 | Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning |
| IFEval | 94.5 | 95.9 | 1.4 | Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning |
| TruthfulQA | 86.9 | 89.0 | 2.1 | Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning |
| HellaSwag | 93.0 | 93.8 | 0.8 | Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning |
| MMMU | 82.3 | 84.6 | 2.3 | Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning |
| Arena Elo | 1501.9 | 1497.5 | 4.4 | Claude Opus 4.5 Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Opus 4.5 Max costs about $42.30 per million tokens and Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning costs about $42.72. Claude Opus 4.5 Max is roughly 1% cheaper than Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens, compared with 1,000,000 for Claude Opus 4.5 Max. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.5 Max wins 4, Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning wins 7, and 1 are tied. On the index average, Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning leads Claude Opus 4.5 Max by 0.4 points (88.2 versus 87.8).
The price picture favours Claude Opus 4.5 Max. The context picture favours Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and Claude Opus 4.5 Max for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Claude Opus 4.5 Max if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
Choose Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 2,000,000-token context window.
FAQ
Is Claude Opus 4.5 Max better than Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning?
On the index average, Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning leads Claude Opus 4.5 Max by 0.4 points (88.2 versus 87.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Opus 4.5 Max wins 4 benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning wins 7.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.5 Max or Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning?
Claude Opus 4.5 Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $42.30 per million tokens, versus $42.72 for Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens. Claude Opus 4.5 Max has 1,000,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Opus 4.5 Max is proprietary; Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning for quality-sensitive work and Claude Opus 4.5 Max for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.