Anthropic and OpenAI Launch Lower-Priced AI Models

Anthropic and OpenAI announced lower-priced artificial intelligence models on September 22, with Anthropic introducing Claude Opus 5.5 and OpenAI releasing GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna. The launches put new options at different price points before developers and businesses evaluating AI costs, though the companies’ savings claims use different comparisons and do not establish which model is cheaper for every workload. Anthropic set Opus 5.5 API prices at $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens. The company said the model costs about 40% less to run than Opus 5 on typical workloads. OpenAI priced Sol at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, and Luna at 10 cents and 50 cents, respectively. OpenAI said the prices are about 50% below those of its GPT-5.6 predecessors. Those percentages are not directly comparable: Anthropic’s figure concerns operating costs against Opus 5 on typical workloads, while OpenAI’s is a price comparison with GPT-5.6. The reports do not provide a common workload or cost basis for comparing the models’ actual expenses. The API prices also do not, by themselves, establish changes to subscription fees.