Anthropic Launches Claude Sonnet 5 as New Default Model
Anthropic
Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 5 on June 30, making it the default model for Free and Pro users. It delivers near-Opus 4.8 performance across coding, agentic tasks, and professional work with introductory API pricing of $2/$10 per million tokens (input/output) through August 31, 2026.
Why it matters
Sonnet 5 significantly closes the gap with Anthropic's flagship Opus model at a fraction of the cost, making frontier agentic AI broadly accessible to developers and Claude's entire user base.
Importance: 5/5
Anthropic flagship Sonnet 5 release with near-Opus performance at lower cost; frontier lab major release + strong multi-outlet coverage
Sources
official
Introducing Claude Sonnet 5