Anthropic reported a 3.6x increase in total token volume following the release of the Claude Opus 5.5 model on September 22, 2026. The new model is designed for complex, multi-step tasks such as coding and research, and it outperforms the Fable 5.1 model on benchmarks like FrontierCode and CursorBench.
Pricing for Opus 5.5 is set at $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens, representing a 20% reduction compared to its predecessor. Additionally, cache read costs have decreased by 60% to $0.20 per million tokens. Overall operating costs are approximately 40% lower, while output generation speed has increased by more than 30%.
Early testers, including Box, noted that the model maintains accuracy while reducing token consumption by one-third due to a more direct communication style. The surge in total volume suggests that users are running significantly more tasks, illustrating the Jevons paradox where increased efficiency leads to higher overall consumption.
The company plans to expand the Claude 5.5 series with the upcoming release of Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5 models. While the increase in token volume is significant, the impact on total revenue remains uncertain, as the company has not disclosed the specific mix of input, output, and cached tokens used by customers.
