Claude Opus 5.5 is available now, with Anthropic claiming Fable 5.1-level performance on most work at 40% lower typical operating cost than Opus 5. The new model also brings stronger safeguards for cybersecurity and biology, where capability gains make unrestricted access a rather poor idea. It follows Anthropic’s earlier Claude Fable 5.1 release in the company’s expanding model line-up.
Anthropic says Opus 5.5 is its strongest-performing model so far on its automated behavioural audit. The company also says it is more resistant to prompt injection, takes fewer hard-to-reverse actions and generates output more than 30% faster than Opus 5. Those are company test results, not an independent review.
Claude Opus 5.5 lowers the cost of long AI jobs
Anthropic prices Claude Opus 5.5 at $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens, down from $5 and $25 for Opus 5. Cache reads fall from $0.50 to $0.20 per million tokens, while cache writes cost $5 per million. The company says the combination of lower rates and fewer tokens per task produces a 40% reduction on typical workloads.
| Price per 1M tokens | Claude Opus 5.5 | Claude Opus 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Cache reads | $0.20 | $0.50 |
| Input | $4 | $5 |
| Output | $20 | $25 |
The model is aimed at work that runs for hours rather than a quick question. Anthropic cites a 680,000-line code migration completed in less than a day. In an internal HAProxy C-to-Rust rewrite, Opus 5.5 finished in 9.5 hours versus 12 for Fable 5.1, at 51% lower cost. It is also available in a fast mode for Claude Code and the Claude Platform, at up to 2.5 times the speed for $8 input and $40 output per million tokens.
Claude Opus 5.5 comes with stricter cyber safeguards
Anthropic says Opus 5.5 is comparable with Claude Mythos 5.1 in biology and cybersecurity. Routine software development, including finding and fixing bugs, remains supported, but most cybersecurity tasks will be rerouted to Opus 4.8. Verified practitioners are due to receive broader access through Anthropic’s Cyber Verification Program in the coming weeks.
Claude Opus 5.5 is available through Anthropic’s platform and major cloud providers including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, according to the company. Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5 are expected in the coming weeks.
The launch follows Anthropic’s announcement and was reported with pricing and performance details by TechCrunch. The Verge separately reported the model’s tighter cybersecurity safeguards. UAE pricing for Claude subscriptions or API access was not listed in the sources checked.
Who benefits most from Claude Opus 5.5?
Teams running long coding, research or business workflows benefit most because Anthropic says the model uses fewer tokens and costs less per task than Opus 5.
Can Claude Opus 5.5 be used for cybersecurity work?
Routine bug finding and fixing remains supported, but Anthropic says most cybersecurity tasks will be routed to Opus 4.8 until verified practitioners receive broader programme access.
Is Claude Opus 5.5 available in the UAE?
The model is listed for Anthropic’s platform and major cloud providers, but the sources checked did not confirm a UAE-specific subscription or API price.
