Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8 — what it is, when to use it and what to use instead

Summary

Claude Opus 4.8 is the previous Opus release, at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens with a 1M-token context window and 128K max output. Anthropic marks it as legacy and points to Claude Opus 5, which costs the same.

Opus 4.8 was released on 28 May 2026 and was superseded by Claude Opus 5 on 24 July 2026. The two models share the same price, the same 1M-token context window and the same 128K max output; Opus 5 moves the knowledge cutoff from January 2026 to May 2026 and changes thinking behaviour.

It accepts text and image input and returns text, with adaptive thinking and effort defaulting to high. Anthropic lists the model as active, so existing calls keep working, but its documentation recommends migrating.

No deprecation has been announced. Anthropic commits to keeping Claude Opus 4.8 available until at least 28 May 2027.

Modality

• Text
• Vision

Use case

• Chat
• Coding
• Reasoning
• Agents & tool use
• Long context

Tier

• Frontier

Access

• Hosted API

Languages

• Multilingual

Specifications

Input price

$5.00 / M tokens

Output price

$25.00 / M tokens

Price band

Premium

Context window

1M tokens

Max output

128K tokens

Input

Text, image

Output

Text

Knowledge cutoff

January 2026

Tool use

Yes

Structured output

Yes

Weights licence

not published

Model maker

Anthropic

“unknown” means the figure has not been published, or we have not verified it yet — never that the answer is no. “not published” under the weights licence means this model is not offered with downloadable weights. The price band is ours: it bands the blended price (three parts input to one part output) as budget (≤ $0.50), standard (≤ $3), premium (≤ $12) or flagship.

Lifecycle

Anthropic has not announced a deprecation or shutdown date for this model. That is a statement about what has been published, not a guarantee — providers typically announce a shutdown months ahead, and this page updates when they do.

1. Released 28 May 2026
2. Deprecated not announced
3. Retired not announced

Use it for

• Keep an existing Opus 4.8 integration running while you test Claude Opus 5 against your evaluations.
• Stay on a pinned model during a release freeze, since the model ID is its own fixed snapshot.
• Compare output between Opus generations before you switch a production workload.

Avoid it when

• You are starting a new integration; Claude Opus 5 costs the same $5 / $25 and has a four-month-newer knowledge cutoff.
• You need knowledge of events after January 2026, which is where this model's reliable cutoff sits.
• Cost per call is a constraint; Claude Sonnet 5 covers much of the same work at $2 / $10.

Alternatives to consider

• Claude Opus 5 Curated

  Anthropic ● Active

  The successor at an identical $5 / $25 with the same 1M-token window and a May 2026 knowledge cutoff instead of January 2026.

  $5.00 in · $25.00 out / M tokens · 1M context

• Claude Sonnet 5 Curated

  Anthropic ● Active

  The tier below at $2 / $10 with the same 1M-token context window, if depth matters less than cost.

  $2.00 in · $10.00 out / M tokens · 1M context

• GPT-5.6 Sol Curated

  OpenAI ● Active

  OpenAI's flagship tier at $4 / $20 with a 1.05M-token context window and a February 2026 knowledge cutoff.

  $4.00 in · $20.00 out / M tokens · 1.1M context

• Claude Opus 4.5 Derived

  Anthropic ● Active

  Same provider, same tier (frontier), similar price; shares chat, coding, reasoning, agents and long-context.

  $5.00 in · $25.00 out / M tokens · 200K context

• Claude Opus 4.5 Derived

  Amazon Bedrock ● Active

  Alternative from Amazon Bedrock, same tier (frontier), similar price; shares chat, coding, reasoning, agents and long-context.

  $5.00 in · $25.00 out / M tokens · 200K context

Curated suggestions were picked by a reviewer, with the reason written by hand. Derived suggestions are ranked from the data — shared tags, the same tier and a comparable price band — not from benchmark scores. Check the capability fit yourself: we track lifecycle, price and specifications.

Sources

• platform.claude.com ↗ https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/models/opus-4-8/overview
• platform.claude.com ↗ https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing
• platform.claude.com ↗ https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/models/overview
• platform.claude.com ↗ https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/model-deprecations

Verified against the source on 10 September 2026. Dataset snapshot 10 September 2026. Providers can change a date without notice — the link above is always the final word.

About this profile

The specifications and dates above are facts from Anthropic, with the sources listed. The summary, the use-for and avoid-when lists and the curated alternatives are our assessment: editorial profile reviewed on 21 September 2026 by llm-researcher.