Claude's top model price is back near its 2023 starting point
Based on Anthropic's own launch posts and price sheets, the price of Claude's per million tokens has swung a lot since 2023 but landed almost where it started: $11.02 in 2023, then $8, then $15, then $5, and now $10. Sonnet, the mid-tier model, has stayed flat at $3 per million tokens since March 2024 across six s — same price, but each version has been smarter.
Haiku, the budget model, moved the opposite way: it launched at $0.25 and now costs $1.00, a 4x increase. Notably, in March 2023 Claude billed by character count ($2.90 per million characters) rather than tokens; token-based only started a month later.
Key points
- Claude's top model: $11.02 (2023) → $8 → $15 → $5 → $10 (today), per million tokens
- Sonnet has held at $3 per million tokens since March 2024 across six versions
- Haiku rose from $0.25 at launch to $1.00 today, a 4x increase
- was ally per-character ($2.90/million chars) in March 2023, switching to per-token a month later