Claude Sonnet 4.6
Anthropic · Released Feb 2026
Superseded by Claude Sonnet 5 (shipped Jun 30, 2026), which Anthropic now lists as legacy behind Claude Sonnet 5.5 as the current Sonnet. Both list at $2/$10 per 1M tokens against Sonnet 4.6's $3/$15, since Anthropic cancelled the scheduled rise to $3/$15. Sonnet 5 also adds a 13.4-point Terminal-Bench 2.1 jump. 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
- Code that depends on temperature/top_p/top_k, which Sonnet 5 removed
Not good for
- New default workloads: Claude Sonnet 5.5 is Anthropic's current Sonnet at $2/$10 per 1M against Sonnet 4.6's $3/$15; start new work there (Sonnet 5, also $2/$10, is now legacy)
- 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Capable but superseded — Sonnet 5's 13.4-point Terminal-Bench 2.1 jump is the reason to migrate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
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Rate $3/$15 unchanged. Summary and audiences called Sonnet 5 the default; Anthropic lists Sonnet 5 as legacy and Sonnet 5.5 as current at $2/$10. Summary corrected via verdict_set (conditional held); strengths, audiences and sources refreshed.
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Cross-entity coupling from the claude-sonnet-5 trigger. Rate card read 2026-09-18: Claude Sonnet 4.6 $3/MTok in, $15/MTok out (matches stored scalars); Claude Sonnet 5 $2/$10, note verbatim 'The previously scheduled increase to $3/$15 per million input/output tokens on September 1, 2026 will not occur.' The entity said Sonnet 5 was 'at the same rate card' in the summary, an avoid_for strength and a not_for_whom audience. That is false: Sonnet 5 is cheaper. FIXED via model_update: the two rate-card rows now say $2/$10 against $3/$15; removed the for_whom row claiming the ~30% tokenizer expansion would raise effective cost (1.3x $2/$10 is still below $3/$15, so that claim was unsupported) and replaced it with a neutral measure-before-switching row; split the temperature/top_p row out of the cost row; pricing_url anthropic.com/pricing (unread) -> platform rate card (read). Summary corrected via verdict_set (same rating conditional, id 286348bf), no announcing post: a correction of our own prose, not vendor news. Scalars unchanged.
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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.
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Pricing unchanged: $3/$15 per 1M tokens. Current Sonnet tier is 4.6 on the pricing page.
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Sonnet 4 pricing unchanged at $3/$15 in legacy section. Current Sonnet 4.6 also at $3/$15.
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Imported at launch
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Imported at launch