LLM Economics

OpenAI vs Claude: API Cost Comparison

Compare OpenAI and Claude on the same workload and see which is cheaper.

Shared workload

For this workload, OpenAI is cheaper by ~ $180.00/year.

Cost comparison

Side-by-side metrics

MetricOpenAIClaude
Monthly cost$75.00$90.00
Yearly cost$900.00$1,080.00
Daily cost$2.50$3.00
Yearly saving$180.00 saved—

OpenAI

Estimated yearly cost
$900.00/year

((2,000 fresh input × $1.25 + 0 cached-read input × $0.125 + 500 output × $10) / 1M × 10,000 req) × 12

Decision Summary

Best move
Evaluate DeepSeek DeepSeek V4 Flash — potential $849.60/yr saving
Expected savings
$849.60 /yr (94.4% reduction)
Watch out
Switching to GPT-5 Mini cuts estimated cost by 80% — saving $720.
Next step
Optimize with AI Cost Optimizer
Evaluate DeepSeek DeepSeek V4 Flash — potential $849.60/yr saving
At published token rates, DeepSeek DeepSeek V4 Flash handles the same token volume at $50.40/yr — 94.4% less than OpenAI GPT-5. This is a price-only comparison; validate quality, latency, tool support, and regional pricing before switching.
$849.60
saved / year (94.4%)
Prompt Cache not enabledEnable Prompt Cache

Enabling Prompt Cache with a 60% hit ratio could save $162.00/yr (18% reduction). Fix your system prompt at the start of every request and reuse it across calls.

$162.00
saved / year
GPT-5 Mini could replace GPT-5Consider model switch

Switching to GPT-5 Mini cuts estimated cost by 80% — saving $720.00/yr. Run an A/B test against a representative eval set before changing production traffic.

$720.00
saved / year
Monthly cost
$75.00/month
Daily cost
$2.50/day
Cost per request
$0.007500
Model
GPT-5
Input rate
$1.25/MTok
Output rate
$10/MTok

Cost breakdown

ItemMonthlyYearly
Fresh input (2,000 tok/req × 10,000 req × $1.25/MTok)$25.00$300.00
Output spend (500 tok/req × 10,000 req × $10/MTok)$50.00$600.00
Total monthly spend$75.00$900.00

Comparison

OptionMonthlyYearly
OpenAI GPT-5current$75.00$900.00
Claude Claude Sonnet 5$90.00$1,080.00
Gemini Gemini 2.5 Pro$75.00$900.00
DeepSeek DeepSeek V4 Flashcheapest$4.20$50.40

Pricing sources

Last verified 2026-08-03 · OpenAI official pricing developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/compare

Industry Benchmark

Output price vs. peer average ($/1M tokens)Industry avg: 7.57 $/1M
You are at the 66th percentile

Pricing sources

Last verified 2026-08-03 · developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/compare developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/compare · platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing · ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing · api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing

Continue your analysis

Optimize with AI Cost Optimizer
See all savings opportunities ranked by impact.
Check SaaS pricing viability
Find the subscription price that covers your AI cost.

Claude

Estimated yearly cost
$1,080.00/year

((2,000 fresh input × $2 + 0 cached-read input × $0.2 + 500 output × $10) / 1M × 10,000 req) × 12

Decision Summary

Best move
Evaluate DeepSeek DeepSeek V4 Flash — potential $1,029.60/yr saving
Expected savings
$1,029.60 /yr (95.3% reduction)
Watch out
Introductory pricing through 2026-08-31; standard pricing becomes $3/$15 per MTok on 2026-09-01.
Next step
Optimize with AI Cost Optimizer
Evaluate DeepSeek DeepSeek V4 Flash — potential $1,029.60/yr saving
At published token rates, DeepSeek DeepSeek V4 Flash handles the same token volume at $50.40/yr — 95.3% less than Claude Claude Sonnet 5. This is a price-only comparison; validate quality, latency, tool support, and regional pricing before switching.
$1,029.60
saved / year (95.3%)
Prompt Cache not enabledEnable Prompt Cache

Enabling Prompt Cache with a 60% hit ratio could save $259.20/yr (24% reduction). Fix your system prompt at the start of every request and reuse it across calls.

$259.20
saved / year
Time-limited pricingCheck the effective date

Introductory pricing through 2026-08-31; standard pricing becomes $3/$15 per MTok on 2026-09-01.

Monthly cost
$90.00/month
Daily cost
$3.00/day
Cost per request
$0.009000
Model
Claude Sonnet 5
Input rate
$2/MTok
Output rate
$10/MTok

Cost breakdown

ItemMonthlyYearly
Fresh input (2,000 tok/req × 10,000 req × $2/MTok)$40.00$480.00
Output spend (500 tok/req × 10,000 req × $10/MTok)$50.00$600.00
Total monthly spend$90.00$1,080.00

Comparison

OptionMonthlyYearly
OpenAI GPT-5$75.00$900.00
Claude Claude Sonnet 5current$90.00$1,080.00
Gemini Gemini 2.5 Pro$75.00$900.00
DeepSeek DeepSeek V4 Flashcheapest$4.20$50.40

Pricing sources

Last verified 2026-08-03 · Claude official pricing platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing

Industry Benchmark

Output price vs. peer average ($/1M tokens)Industry avg: 7.57 $/1M
You are at the 66th percentile

Pricing sources

Last verified 2026-08-03 · developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/compare developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/compare · platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing · ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing · api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing

Continue your analysis

Optimize with AI Cost Optimizer
See all savings opportunities ranked by impact.
Check SaaS pricing viability
Find the subscription price that covers your AI cost.

Pricing model differences

OpenAI and Claude price input and output tokens at different rates and offer different caching and batch discounts. For output-heavy workloads the output token price dominates; for context-heavy workloads, cached-input pricing matters most. Understanding this split is critical: a chatbot generating long responses will be driven by output cost, while a RAG pipeline with large context windows will be driven by input cost.

When to choose each

Pick the provider whose pricing best fits your token ratio and volume. If your workload is output-heavy (code generation, long-form writing), compare output rates directly. If your workload reuses long system prompts or few-shot examples, compare cached-input pricing — a provider with aggressive caching discounts can be 5-10× cheaper on the input side. Use the shared input above to model your real workload, then check the cheaper option and the annual saving before committing.

Common switching scenarios

Teams commonly switch providers when: (1) they need to cut costs without sacrificing quality — moving from a flagship model to a competitor's mid-tier can save 60-80% while maintaining acceptable output quality; (2) a specific benchmark matters — one provider may lead in coding while another leads in reasoning; (3) context window requirements change — some providers offer 1M+ tokens natively while others require workarounds. Use our Model Migration Calculator to estimate the full switching cost including engineering time.

Beyond price: quality and latency

Cost is only one dimension of an LLM decision. Response latency (time-to-first-token and tokens-per-second), output quality on your specific task, and reliability (uptime, rate limits) all matter. A model that's 30% cheaper but 50% slower may cost more when you factor in user wait time or throughput requirements. Check our LLM Leaderboard for benchmark comparisons, and run A/B tests on your actual prompts before committing to a provider switch.

Compare these models on coding, reasoning, and agentic benchmarks → LLM Leaderboard

Frequently asked questions

Which is cheaper, OpenAI or Claude?▾

It depends on your token mix and volume. Enter your workload above — the calculator computes both and shows the cheaper option with the exact yearly saving.

How do the pricing models differ?▾

Each provider prices input and output tokens differently and offers different cached-input and batch discounts. The side-by-side breakdown makes the difference explicit.

Is this based on official pricing?▾

It uses comparable-tier placeholder pricing from a versioned JSON config. Verify against each provider's official price page; the footer shows the data version.

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OpenAI vs Claude: API Cost Comparison