← Back to the A-Z glossary
Model · Anthropic · 2026

Claude Opus 4.7

Claude Opus 4.7 is Anthropic's most powerful model in 2026. When a problem stumps Sonnet, I hand it to Opus: slower and pricier, but it cracks complex code, long-form analysis, and agents that run on their own for hours.

Model 5 min read Updated 2026-05-23
— What it is

Claude Opus 4.7, in plain words

Plainly put: it's the heavy artillery of the Anthropic lineup. Where Sonnet is your everyday Swiss Army knife, Opus is the model you pull out for tasks that need real thinking.

It has the biggest context window in the lineup (up to 1 million tokens in extended mode), deeper reasoning, and holds its own on coding benchmarks (SWE-bench especially).

The downsides: it's slower (sometimes 30s for an answer) and costs about 5× more than Sonnet. So you don't pull it out just to reply to an email.

What I use it for

  • Coding something complicated: when Claude Code has to edit 10 files at once without breaking anything, I switch to Opus. You can see the difference.
  • Digging through a thick legal file: 200 pages of terms and conditions, find the clauses that are a problem. Opus catches things Sonnet misses.
  • Business strategy: "Here's my company, my market, my competitors, my business plan. Find the 3 flaws in my reasoning." Opus pushes further than Sonnet.
  • Long-form agents: an agent that has to run 50 steps in a row without losing the thread. Opus goes the distance; Sonnet eventually drifts.
  • Deep research: it has an "extended thinking" mode where it can think for several minutes before answering.

How it compares

vs Claude Sonnet 4.6: Opus wins on the hard tasks (code, reasoning, long-form analysis). Sonnet wins on value for money for 90% of everyday uses.

vs GPT-5.5: A really tight race. Opus has the edge on code and on following long instructions. GPT-5.5 has the edge on pure math and scientific reasoning.

vs Gemini 3.1 Pro: Gemini has the bigger context window (2M tokens). Opus still comes out ahead on code and writing quality, to my taste.

What it costs

API pricing as of May 23, 2026 (source: anthropic.com/pricing):

  • Input: $15 / million tokens
  • Output: $75 / million tokens
  • 1M context (extended): roughly 2× the rate

In practice: a big Claude Code session on Opus can run you $5-10 in an hour. Compare that to Sonnet, which would do the same session for $1-2.

Via claude.ai: available on the Max plan ($100/month minimum) or on Pro with limited quotas.

My take

I use it about 10-15% of the time, and always for a specific reason. Not my default, but my heavy artillery.

Where Opus shines: when Sonnet goes in circles or spits out code that doesn't work, switching to Opus unblocks the situation 8 times out of 10. On those moments, it's well worth the price difference.

What I don't love: the sluggishness on short questions (overkill), and the fact that it drags during US peak hours on claude.ai.

Quick questions

Opus or Sonnet by default?

Claude Opus 4.7 is Anthropic's high-end model in 2026: deep reasoning, complex code across multiple files, autonomous agents. Slower and pricier than Sonnet, but often the deciding factor on hard tasks.

Is Opus worth the price?

Yes, but only if you use it for the right cases. To reply to an email, it's wasted.

A 1M-token context, really?

Yes, extended mode you can turn on via the API. In practice, quality stays strong up to about 500K, after that it starts to slip.

Checked 2026-05-25 · next review 2026-11-25

Pricing and specs verified on anthropic.com/pricing. Personal use: Opus used via Claude Code and the API for complex coding sessions.

Want to keep going in order?

Head back to the full glossary, search a word, then open only the pages that deserve more than a short definition.

Open the AI glossary