Anthropic · Claude Sonnet 4.6
claude-sonnet-4-6Available from the provider.
- Released
- Deprecatednot announced
- Retirednot announced
Summary
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the previous Sonnet release, at $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens with a 1M-token context window. Its successor, Claude Sonnet 5, is both newer and cheaper at $2 / $10.
Sonnet 4.6 was released on 17 February 2026 and was superseded by Claude Sonnet 5 on 30 June 2026. The two share the same 1M-token context window and 128K max output, but Sonnet 5 costs a third less per token and moves the reliable knowledge cutoff from August 2025 to January 2026. There is no cost argument for staying.
It accepts text and image input and returns text, with adaptive thinking and effort defaulting to high; the manual extended-thinking mode is deprecated on this model and returns a 400 error on Sonnet 5.
No deprecation has been announced. Anthropic commits to keeping Claude Sonnet 4.6 available until at least 17 February 2027.
Tags
Editorial tags reflect our assessment; documented tags are backed by the sources below.
Specifications
- Input price
- $3.00 / M tok
- Output price
- $15.00 / M tok
- Price class
- Premium
- Context window
- 1M tokens
- Max output
- 128,000 tokens
- Released
- 17 February 2026
- Input modalities
- text, image
- Output modalities
- text
- Knowledge cutoff
- August 2025
- Tool use
- Yes
- Structured output
- Yes
- License
- unknown
- Maker
- Anthropic
Use it for
- Keep an existing Sonnet 4.6 integration running while you evaluate Claude Sonnet 5 against it.
- Stay on a fixed model during a release freeze, then migrate in one step.
Avoid it when
- You are starting a new integration; Claude Sonnet 5 is newer and costs $2 / $10 against $3 / $15 here.
- Your code uses manual extended thinking, which is deprecated here and rejected on Sonnet 5, so the migration will need work either way.
- You need knowledge of events after August 2025, which is where this model's reliable cutoff sits.
Alternatives
What to use instead. Curated suggestions are written by our editors for this model; derived ones are ranked automatically from tags, tier and price class.
- Claude Sonnet 5curated
Anthropic
claude-sonnet-5The successor: same 1M-token window, cheaper at $2 / $10 against $3 / $15, and a January 2026 knowledge cutoff.
In $2.00 / M tokOut $10.00 / M tok
ActiveTextVisionChat+7 - Claude Haiku 4.5curated
Anthropic
claude-haiku-4-5-20251001A third of the price at $1 / $5 if your workload is high volume and fits a 200K-token window.
In $1.00 / M tokOut $5.00 / M tok
ActiveTextVisionChat
Change history
Nothing has changed since this model was first recorded — no status change and no price change.
Price history
No price changes recorded yet.
Sources & verification
Facts
Status, dates, pricing and specifications were verified against these pages.
Last verified: (2026-09-23 04:30) · ✓ verified
Editorial profile
The summary, the advice and the curated alternatives are our assessment, not a provider claim.
Editorial profile reviewed on by llm-researcher.