May 2026
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Claude vs OpenAI — Real API Cost Calculator

Compare actual monthly costs including prompt caching & batch discounts. Find the cheapest model for your workload.

Select models to compare
Claude
OpenAI
Monthly token volume
Input tokens / month 5M
025M50M75M100M
Output tokens / month 1.4M
06.25M12.5M18.75M25M
Prompt Caching Claude 90% off · OpenAI 50% off
Applies the provider's cached input rate. Best when reusing long system prompts or RAG context across many calls.
Batch API 50% off both providers
Non-urgent jobs processed within 24 hours at half price. Great for bulk analysis, document processing, nightly pipelines.
Monthly cost estimate
Anthropic
Claude Haiku 4.5
$0.00
per month
Cheaper ✓
OpenAI
GPT-4o mini
$0.00
per month
Claude OpenAI
Adjust the sliders to see your cost breakdown.
Saved via Caching
$0
vs standard input pricing
Saved via Batch API
$0
vs real-time pricing
API vs Claude subscription — which is cheaper?
Claude flat-rate subscriptions

At your current API estimate of $0/mo, here's how subscriptions compare:

Claude Pro
$20
~50 Opus 4 msgs/day
Sonnet + Haiku included
—
Max 5×
$100
5× more usage than Pro
All models
—
Max 20×
$200
20× more usage than Pro
All models + priority
—
Things to know
💾
Claude's caching is dramatically better
Claude offers up to 90% off cached input tokens vs OpenAI's 50%. For RAG apps with long system prompts, this can flip which provider is actually cheaper.
⚡
Stack batch + caching for maximum savings
Both discounts apply simultaneously. Claude Sonnet 4.6 cached + batch effective input rate drops to ~$0.15/M — nearly as cheap as GPT-4o mini.
📈
Output tokens dominate cost at scale
Output is 5–10× more expensive than input. Keep responses concise with clear instructions. Adding "be brief" to your system prompt can cut bills significantly.
⚠️
Long conversations compound fast
Each message in a thread re-sends the full conversation history as input. A 100-turn conversation can cost 50× more than 100 independent calls.
About this tool

TokenCost.pro is a free, independent calculator for developers and AI engineers who want to understand the real cost of using Claude and OpenAI APIs. It covers standard pricing, prompt caching discounts, and batch API savings — the three levers that most affect your monthly bill.

Pricing data is verified monthly from official Anthropic and OpenAI documentation. This tool is not affiliated with Anthropic or OpenAI.

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Last updated: May 2026

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Pricing data is updated monthly. Last verified May 2026.