Claude Opus 4.5 Vision vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Opus 4.5 Vision and Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Opus 4.5 Vision and Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo are effectively tied on the index average; Claude Opus 4.5 Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Opus 4.5 Vision
Claude Opus 4.5 Vision is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $17.70 per million input tokens and $74.84 per million output tokens, and averages 85.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $17.70 / 1M
- Output
- $74.84 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 85.9
- Open weights
- No
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $18.37 per million input tokens and $81.65 per million output tokens, and averages 85.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $18.37 / 1M
- Output
- $81.65 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 85.9
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $17.70 | $18.37 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $74.84 | $81.65 | A |
| Context window | 200,000 | 1,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 32,768 | 65,536 | B |
| Average score | 85.9 | 85.9 | Tie |
| Arena Elo | 1452.2 | 1461.7 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Opus 4.5 Vision wins 5, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo wins 7, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.9 | 87.2 | 0.3 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo |
| GPQA Diamond | 80.7 | 83.7 | 3.0 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo |
| SWE-bench Verified | 77.7 | 75.2 | 2.5 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| HumanEval | 88.2 | 90.4 | 2.2 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo |
| MATH-500 | 91.9 | 88.0 | 3.9 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| AIME 2025 | 85.4 | 87.8 | 2.4 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo |
| LiveCodeBench | 80.1 | 78.9 | 1.2 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| IFEval | 92.6 | 91.4 | 1.2 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| TruthfulQA | 86.9 | 87.7 | 0.8 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo |
| HellaSwag | 91.4 | 93.9 | 2.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo |
| MMMU | 83.2 | 81.1 | 2.1 | Claude Opus 4.5 Vision |
| Arena Elo | 1452.2 | 1461.7 | 9.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Opus 4.5 Vision costs about $31.98 per million tokens and Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo costs about $34.19. Claude Opus 4.5 Vision is roughly 6% cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for Claude Opus 4.5 Vision. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.5 Vision wins 5, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo wins 7, and 0 are tied. The two models are effectively tied on the index average at 85.9.
The price picture favours Claude Opus 4.5 Vision. The context picture favours Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo. 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 Vision if cost is the constraint and Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo if context is the constraint. Test both on a sample of your own traffic before committing.
Choose Claude Opus 4.5 Vision if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo if
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Claude Opus 4.5 Vision better than Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo?
The two models are effectively tied on the index average at 85.9. The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Opus 4.5 Vision wins 5 benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo wins 7.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.5 Vision or Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo?
Claude Opus 4.5 Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $31.98 per million tokens, versus $34.19 for Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo.
Which has the larger context window?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Claude Opus 4.5 Vision has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Opus 4.5 Vision is proprietary; Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Claude Opus 4.5 Vision if cost is the constraint and Claude Sonnet 4.5 Turbo if context is the constraint. Test both on a sample of your own traffic before committing.