Is Claude Fable 5.2 more expensive than Opus 5.5?

Per token, yes: $8 / $40 against $4 / $20 per million at Anthropic, and $12 against $6.10 per million output tokens on KeelRouter. Per task it depends on effort: Fable at high cost less than Opus at max on Artificial Analysis, but Opus at high or below is cheaper than any Fable setting.

Which effort level should I use on Fable 5.2?

Start at medium or high. On Artificial Analysis, going from high to max raised the cost per task from $9.08 to $26.54 for three more points. Anthropic recommends high as the starting point and max only for measuring the ceiling.

Why do some tests say Fable 5.2 is cheaper and others that it is more expensive?

They compare different settings. Charts that show only max effort make Fable look expensive ($26.54 against $10.04 a task); comparing at a similar score, Fable at high against Opus at max, makes it cheaper. Pick the setting by the quality you need.

Did you run your own test?

No. This page quotes published results from the linked sources; the prices are from our live catalog. Your own tasks may use more or fewer tokens.

Can I call both with one API key?

Yes. On KeelRouter both are behind POST /v1/chat/completions and POST /v1/messages: set model to claude-fable-5-2 or claude-opus-5-5 and output_config.effort to the level you want.

Claude Fable 5.2 vs Opus 5.5: price per token vs cost per task

Anthropic shipped Claude Fable 5.2 on November 9, 2026 at twice the per-token price of Claude Opus 5.5, and recommends Opus 5.5 as the default. The first public tests disagree on which one is cheaper, because they compare different effort settings. We collected the published head-to-head results, put them side by side by effort level, and worked out what they mean at KeelRouter prices.

Our take: Per token Fable 5.2 costs about twice as much as Opus 5.5, at Anthropic and here. Per task it depends on effort: Fable at high scored above Opus at max for less money on Artificial Analysis and matched it at about half the cost on FrontierCode, while Opus at low, medium or high costs less per task than any Fable setting. Keep Opus 5.5 as the default and send long, hard tasks to Fable 5.2 at medium or high, not max.

Models: claude-fable-5-2, claude-opus-5-5. No runs of our own: prices from our catalog, benchmark and community results from the sources linked on this page. Sources checked 2026-11-11.

Price on KeelRouter

Option	Claude Fable 5.2	Claude Opus 5.5
input	$2.50	$1.20
output	$12	$6.10

per 1M tokens. Prices follow our catalog and update when providers change theirs.

Cost per task by effort level

Artificial Analysis runs both models through the same nine evaluations at every effort level and reports the average cost of one task at Anthropic list prices. Sorted by score:

Model and effort	Intelligence Index	Cost per task (list)	Time per task
Fable 5.2, max	65	$26.54	44.4 min
Fable 5.2, xhigh	62	$14.83	26.1 min
Fable 5.2, high	62	$9.08	17.5 min
Opus 5.5, max	59	$10.04	24.7 min
Opus 5.5, xhigh	57	$6.05	15.9 min
Fable 5.2, medium	56	$3.80	7.9 min
Fable 5.2, low	54	$3.10	6.4 min
Opus 5.5, high	52	$3.46	9.6 min
Opus 5.5, medium	48	$2.45	7.1 min
Opus 5.5, low	35	$0.98	2.9 min

Our take: how to route between them on KeelRouter

Same ratio, lower base. On KeelRouter Fable 5.2 costs $2.50 / $12 and Opus 5.5 $1.20 / $6.10 per million input / output tokens, about 30% and 31% of Anthropic's list prices. Fable is still about 2.0 times Opus per token, so the effort ranking in the published tests carries over unchanged: compare the two at the quality you need, not at the same setting.

When Fable at high beats Opus at max on cost: if you run Opus 5.5 at xhigh or max today, try Fable 5.2 at high or medium first. On Artificial Analysis, Fable at high scored 62 for $9.08 a task against 59 for $10.04 for Opus at max. Anthropic reports the same direction on FrontierCode 2.0 (45.3% for Fable at high against 45.5% for Opus at max, at roughly half the cost per task) and on WANDR (Fable at medium matched Opus's top score for about 40% of the cost).

When Opus stays cheaper: below about 52 points on the index, Opus 5.5 at low, medium or high ($0.98 to $3.46 a task) costs less than the cheapest Fable setting ($3.10 at low), and it finishes sooner. Short chat, extraction, routine coding and anything latency-bound belongs on Opus. Open-ended creative builds are another case: in one community test Fable took 1.5 hours and $57.87 where Opus took 68 minutes and $14.39.

What our price does to the per-task math: if your tasks use tokens the way the index does, multiply the list figures by about 30%. That puts Fable at high near $2.72 a task and Opus at max near $3.06 (our estimate from the ratio above, not a measured run). One exception: cache reads. We bill them at 10% of our input price but never above Anthropic's cache read price, so Fable cache reads cost $0.20 per million, the same as Anthropic's list price, while Opus cache reads cost $0.12 (Anthropic charges $0.20). An agent loop that mostly rereads a cached context saves less on Fable than the headline ratio suggests.

A simple routing rule: default to Opus 5.5 at medium; escalate to Fable 5.2 at medium or high when a task is long, multi-step or scientific (on Anthropic's Remote Labor Index Fable completed 41.3% of freelance projects against 21.3% for Opus); never send max by default. Pin output_config.effort in every request, because the API defaults differ (high on Fable, medium on Opus).

Published head-to-head results

Intelligence Index 65 for Fable 5.2 at max against 59 for Opus 5.5 at max, at $26.54 against $10.04 per task. Fable at high: 62 for $9.08. Cheapest settings: Opus at low $0.98 (2.9 min), Fable at low $3.10 (6.4 min).
Artificial Analysis: Claude Fable 5.2 vs Claude Opus 5.5, 2026-11-11
FrontierCode 2.0: Fable 5.2 at high 45.3% against Opus 5.5's best 45.5% for roughly half the cost per task; 49.1% at xhigh. WANDR: Fable at medium matches Opus's top score for about 40% of the cost. Remote Labor Index: 41.3% against 21.3%.
Anthropic: Introducing Claude Fable 5.2 and Mythos 5.2, 2026-11-09
Same build on both: Fable 5.2 took 1 hr 30 min and $57.87, Opus 5.5 took 68 min and $14.39. The author judged Fable's sunset and night scenes better, at about four times the cost. One run each.
@MrTacticalX on X: Fable 5.2 vs Opus 5.5, Glass Pool, 2026-11-10
The post (487 upvotes) used a max-effort cost chart to argue Fable 5.2 is dearer per task than 5.1. The thread's consensus: max-only charts mislead, and Fable at high is cheaper and scores higher than Opus 5.5 at max.
r/ClaudeAI "WTF Fable 5.2 Cost per task is Insane", summarized by MindPattern, 2026-11-09
Sentiment index 49 (neutral) from 1,220 opinions in 234 threads in its first two days. Cost is the most criticised topic (25% of 253 opinions positive); intelligence the most praised (70% of 167).
modelsentiment: Claude Fable 5.2 on Reddit, 2026-11-11

When to use which

Claude Fable 5.2

Highest Intelligence Index score at every effort from high up (62 to 65).
At high, a better score than Opus 5.5 at max for a lower cost per task on Artificial Analysis.
Large leads on long, open-ended work: Remote Labor Index 41.3% against 21.3%.

Twice the per-token price; max effort costs $26.54 a task on the index.
Slower than Opus at the same effort on Artificial Analysis: 6.4 against 2.9 minutes a task at low, 44.4 against 24.7 at max.
Needs 30-day data retention at Anthropic; adaptive thinking cannot be turned off.

Claude Opus 5.5

Cheapest route to mid-range quality: $0.98 to $3.46 a task at low to high.
Faster: 2.9 minutes a task at low against 6.4 for Fable at low.
Anthropic's recommended default for most coding and knowledge work.

Tops out at 59 on the index, below Fable 5.2 at high.
Max effort costs more than Fable at high for a lower score.

FAQ

Is Claude Fable 5.2 more expensive than Opus 5.5?: Per token, yes: $8 / $40 against $4 / $20 per million at Anthropic, and $12 against $6.10 per million output tokens on KeelRouter. Per task it depends on effort: Fable at high cost less than Opus at max on Artificial Analysis, but Opus at high or below is cheaper than any Fable setting.
Which effort level should I use on Fable 5.2?: Start at medium or high. On Artificial Analysis, going from high to max raised the cost per task from $9.08 to $26.54 for three more points. Anthropic recommends high as the starting point and max only for measuring the ceiling.
Why do some tests say Fable 5.2 is cheaper and others that it is more expensive?: They compare different settings. Charts that show only max effort make Fable look expensive ($26.54 against $10.04 a task); comparing at a similar score, Fable at high against Opus at max, makes it cheaper. Pick the setting by the quality you need.
Did you run your own test?: No. This page quotes published results from the linked sources; the prices are from our live catalog. Your own tasks may use more or fewer tokens.
Can I call both with one API key?: Yes. On KeelRouter both are behind POST /v1/chat/completions and POST /v1/messages: set model to claude-fable-5-2 or claude-opus-5-5 and output_config.effort to the level you want.

More comparisons

KeelRouter is an independent service and is not affiliated with the makers of these models. Model names are trademarks of their owners, used here only to name the model a request runs on. Benchmark and community figures are quoted from the linked sources as of the date above; your own tasks may cost and score differently.