Claude Sonnet 4.6
Anthropic · Released Feb 2026
Superseded by Claude Sonnet 5 (shipped Jun 30, 2026) as the default mid-tier workhorse. Sonnet 4.6's $3/$15 pricing and 1M-token context are now matched by a successor with a 13.4-point Terminal-Bench 2.1 jump at the same rate card. Choose 4.6 only for pinned deployments or where Sonnet 5's ~30% higher token count and removed temperature/top_p/top_k are disqualifying.
Is it right for you?
Good for
- Pinned or reproducibility-sensitive deployments — teams that need a stable, unchanged model behind their pipeline rather than migrating to Sonnet 5
- Balanced production coding and document analysis — strong speed/quality/cost tradeoff at $3/$15 with a 1M-token context window
- Workloads where the Sonnet 5 tokenizer's ~30% higher token count would inflate cost, or that depend on temperature/top_p/top_k (removed in Sonnet 5)
Not good for
- New default workloads — Sonnet 5 supersedes it with a 13.4-point Terminal-Bench 2.1 jump and near-Opus performance at the same rate card; start new work there
- Longest-horizon agentic coding — Sonnet 5 finishes multi-step tasks 4.6 stalled on; Opus 4.8 / Fable 5 lead the frontier tier
How it performs by task
Code generation
Strong for its generation; Sonnet 5 now finishes multi-step tasks 4.6 stalled on
Document analysis
1M-token context handles large documents well; solid balance of quality and cost
Agentic coding
Capable but superseded — Sonnet 5's 13.4-point Terminal-Bench 2.1 jump is the reason to migrate
Pricing
Input
$3 / 1M tokens
Output
$15 / 1M tokens
Context
1M tokens
Benchmarks
Verdict history
Sources
Verification log
- Pricing— No changes
Automated agent
- Pricing— No changes
Automated agent
- Profile— Updated
Automated agent
Rewrote seed-junk entry in place (slug kept): name 'Claude 4 Sonnet' -> 'Claude Sonnet 4.6'; release 2026-03-15 -> real 2026-02-17; context set to 1M; pricing confirmed $3/$15; verdict recommended -> conditional (superseded by Sonnet 5, still available for pinned/reproducible use). Summary/strengths/audiences/task-ratings/sources fully replaced with sourced Sonnet 4.6 predecessor data.
- Pricing— No changes
Automated agent
- Pricing— No changes
Automated agent
Pricing unchanged: $3/$15 per 1M tokens. Current Sonnet tier is 4.6 on the pricing page.
- Pricing— No changes
Automated agent
Sonnet 4 pricing unchanged at $3/$15 in legacy section. Current Sonnet 4.6 also at $3/$15.
- Pricing— No changes
Automated agent
- Profile— No changes
Imported at launch
- Pricing— No changes
Imported at launch