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Claude Fable 5.1 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5

Claude Fable 5.1 is served by invitation. Its figures below are the live rates, but calls need a workspace grant first; ask us for access before you build on this comparison.

vs

Which one, when

These sit two tiers apart in the Claude line: claude-fable-5-1 is the top tier, which Anthropic positions for demanding reasoning and long-horizon agentic work, and claude-sonnet-5-5 is the lower tier, which it lists as fast where Fable is slower. Both take text and image in and carry a 1000000-token context with 128000 max output, so price marks the gap: claude-fable-5-1 is $10 input and $50 output, 5x claude-sonnet-5-5 at $2 and $10, with cache reads at $0.25 versus $0.2. Run everyday and high-volume traffic on claude-sonnet-5-5, and escalate to claude-fable-5-1 for the long-horizon tasks that justify it.

Benchmarks

Claude Sonnet 5.5: the vendor has not published benchmark scores.

Above averageNo peer higherClaude Fable 5.119 / 213 / 21
Claude Fable 5.1 Claude Sonnet 5.5 other models measured peer average ★ no peer scored higher
DeepSWE 1.1
67.4%
N/A
OSWorld 2.0 partial
80.7%
N/A
HealthBench Professional
58.1%
N/A
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1
52.6%
N/A
GPQA Diamond
93.7%
N/A
AutomationBench
31.4%
N/A
Chartography with tools
88.4%
N/A

Vendor-published: Alibaba (Qwen) Anthropic ByteDance DeepSeek Google MiniMax Moonshot OpenAI Tencent Z.ai

Pricing

Claude Fable 5.1 Claude Sonnet 5.5 Δ
Input / 1M tokens $10 $2 5×
Output / 1M tokens $50 $10 5×
Cache read / 1M tokens $0.25 $0.2 1.3×
Cache write 1.25x (5m) / 2x (1h) 1.25x (5m) / 2x (1h) -

Rates from the live catalog at build time; each model page carries the current card.

Where they sit - input price per 1M tokens across all 76 chat models on this billing unit (log scale)

Capabilities

Claude Fable 5.1 Claude Sonnet 5.5
Tool use yes yes
Thinking control always on always on
Structured output yes yes
Prompt caching explicit (you mark the prefix) explicit (you mark the prefix)
Cache lifetime 5m default, 1h option 5m default, 1h option
Minimum cached prefix 1024 tokens 1024 tokens

Specs

Claude Fable 5.1 Claude Sonnet 5.5
Input modalities text image text image
Output modalities text text
Released 2026-09-01 2026-09-28
Knowledge cutoff 2026-06 2026-06
Context window 1M 1M
Max output 128K 128K
Thinking parameter output_config.effort (thinking is adaptive-only and always on) thinking.type
Accepted values
effort
  • low
  • medium
  • high
  • xhigh
  • max
thinking.type
  • adaptive (default)
  • between_tools
Default

thinking always on (adaptive)

effort
  • high
adaptive, effort high

Specs are transcribed from each vendor’s documentation; a row a vendor does not publish is left out rather than inferred. Full sources: Claude Fable 5.1 · Claude Sonnet 5.5

One prompt, both models - measured through the gateway

PROMPT Explain to a CFO, in exactly three sentences, why our LLM bill doubled after we enabled reasoning. CHECK exactly 3 sentences

Claude Fable 5.1 passed · 3 sentences

When we enabled reasoning, the model started generating a long chain of internal "thinking" tokens before producing each answer, and we're billed for those tokens at the same output rate even though users never see them. In practice, that hidden reasoning often runs several times longer than the visible response, so the total tokens per request roughly doubled while the number of requests stayed flat. The upside is measurably better accuracy on complex tasks, so the right conversation is whether that quality gain justifies the cost—and if not, we can restrict reasoning to the workflows that actually need it rather than turning it on globally.

out 186 tok latency 3.2 s

Claude Sonnet 5.5 passed · 3 sentences

Enabling reasoning makes the model "think" before it answers, and that internal thinking is generated as extra text (reasoning tokens) that we are billed for at the same rate as output tokens, even though users never see it. Output tokens also cost several times more than input tokens, so a single request that used to produce a short answer can now generate many times more billable text behind the scenes. Because our request volume and prompts didn't change, the doubling comes almost entirely from this hidden thinking, and we can bring it down by limiting reasoning effort, turning it off for simple tasks, and reserving it for the workloads where the accuracy gain justifies the cost.

out 205 tok latency 3.6 s

Instruction following (exactly three sentences - countable), audience shaping (CFO register), and the hidden-thinking billing gap the token meters below expose.

PROMPT This function is supposed to return the longest run of consecutive equal items, but callers report it is off by one on single-element inputs and misses runs that end at the last index. Fix it and explain the bug in one paragraph. CHECK fix passes tests

Claude Fable 5.1 passed · 8/8 cases

```python def longest_run(xs): if not xs: return 0 best = cur = 1 for i in range(1, len(xs)): cur = cur + 1 if xs[i] == xs[i - 1] else 1 best = max(best, cur) return best ``` The bug is that `cur` counts *matches between adjacent elements* rather than *elements in the run*: it starts at 0 and only increments when `xs[i] == xs[i-1]`, so a run of length k produces a count of k−1. That's why a single element returns 0 instead of 1, and why every other run also comes out one short — the "misses runs at the end" reports are the same off-by-one seen on inputs like `[1, 2, 2]`, where the trailing run of length 2 is reported as 1 (the original code does update `best` inside the loop, so end-of-list runs aren't actually skipped, just undercounted). […]

out 882 tok (+507 thinking) latency 3.4 s

Claude Sonnet 5.5 passed · 8/8 cases

**The bug:** `cur` counts the number of *adjacent equal pairs* rather than the number of items in the run. A run of length k contains only k−1 such pairs, so every result is one too small. The counter also starts at 0 and the loop starts at index 1, so a single-element list never updates `best` and returns 0 instead of 1. (An empty list should return 0.) In addition, `cur` resets to 0 on a mismatch, when it should reset to 1, because the item at `xs[i]` begins a new run of length 1. The claim that it "misses runs ending at the last index" is really the same off-by-one: the final run is counted, but as one less than its true length. Because `best` is updated inside the loop on every extension, the last run isn't skipped. […]

out 444 tok latency 6.7 s

Whether the fix is actually correct (runnable), explanation density, and token efficiency on a bounded task.

PROMPT Extract a JSON object with fields {company, quarter, revenue_usd_m, growth_pct, guidance} from this text. Use null for anything not stated; add no other fields. CHECK valid JSON, schema exact

Claude Fable 5.1 passed · 5/5 fields, guidance null

```json { "company": "Meridian Robotics", "quarter": "Q3 (September quarter)", "revenue_usd_m": 412, "growth_pct": 11, "guidance": null } ``` Notes on judgment calls (not part of the object): - **revenue_usd_m**: The text says "412 for the topline" but never states the currency or that the figure is in millions; it's also on a constant-currency basis and prefaced with "call it," so it's approximate. If you want strict literalism, this should be `null`. - **growth_pct**: "Eleven and change" means slightly above 11%; the exact figure isn't given. - **quarter**: "September quarter" is Q3 on a calendar basis, consistent with the reference to a pending Q4 close. - **guidance**: Explicitly withheld, so `null`.

out 633 tok (+349 thinking) latency 3.8 s

Claude Sonnet 5.5 passed · 5/5 fields, guidance null

Here is the extracted JSON: ```json { "company": "Meridian Robotics", "quarter": "September quarter", "revenue_usd_m": 412, "growth_pct": 11, "guidance": null } ``` Notes on the choices: - **quarter**: The text says "September quarter" without specifying a fiscal year or Q-number, so I kept the wording as stated. - **revenue_usd_m**: The text gives "412" for the topline, with no currency or unit stated explicitly. I've taken it as 412 million USD per the field definition, but the text does not confirm that, and the figure is constant-currency. - **growth_pct**: "Eleven and change" means slightly above 11, so 11 is an approximation. The exact figure isn't given. - **guidance**: Guidance is withheld pending the Q4 close, so no guidance is stated, hence null.

out 300 tok latency 3.5 s

Schema obedience (no invented fields), hallucination pressure (guidance is explicitly withheld), and structured-output path differences.

PROMPT Write a 120-word product announcement for an API gateway feature that caches prompts across providers. Forbidden words: "seamless", "unlock", "game-changer", "revolutionize", "empower". Exactly one sentence must be a question. CHECK 120 words, 0 banned words

Claude Fable 5.1 passed · 121 words, 0 banned, 1 question

**Introducing Cross-Provider Prompt Caching for the Gateway.** Starting today, your API gateway can cache prompts once and reuse them across OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and any other provider you route to. Long system instructions, retrieval context, and few-shot examples are stored at the gateway layer, so switching models no longer means paying to resend the same tokens. Why send the same 8,000-token preamble to three different vendors when you could send it once? Our cache normalizes prompt segments, fingerprints them, and serves matching prefixes from memory before the request ever reaches an upstream API. Early customers report token costs falling by 30 to 60 percent on high-volume workloads, with median latency dropping alongside. Available today on all Team and Enterprise plans.

out 1722 tok (+1463 thinking) latency 2.9 s

Claude Sonnet 5.5 passed · 122 words, 0 banned, 1 question

**Introducing Cross-Provider Prompt Caching** Your API gateway now caches prompts across every connected LLM provider, whether you route traffic to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or a self-hosted model. Here's how it works: the gateway fingerprints each prompt prefix, stores it centrally, and applies the right provider-specific caching mechanism automatically. When you switch providers or fail over during an outage, your cached context follows you. Early testing shows input token costs dropping by up to 70% on repeated system prompts and long documents, with latency improvements of 40% or more on cache hits. Tired of paying to send the same instructions thousands of times a day? Enable it with one configuration flag. Cache rules, TTLs, and per-team isolation are available in the dashboard today.

out 266 tok latency 3.8 s

Constraint obedience (word budget, banned-word list, the single question), style fingerprint, and length control.

Switch between them with one line

Both ids are in every tab below - the highlighted pair of lines is the only edit. Same endpoint, same key, same request shape.

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://synthorai.io/v1",
    api_key="sk-syn-...",
)

resp = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="claude-fable-5-1",
    # model="claude-sonnet-5-5",  # uncomment this line, comment the one above
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Summarize this diff"}],
    reasoning_effort="medium",
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)

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FAQ

Which is cheaper, Claude Fable 5.1 or Claude Sonnet 5.5?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is cheaper on input / 1m tokens ($2 vs $10, 5.0× apart). Other rows may point the other way - the table above carries the full card, and real cost depends on your mix.

Can I A/B test Claude Fable 5.1 against Claude Sonnet 5.5 without two integrations?

Yes. Both are served through the same OpenAI-compatible endpoint with one API key - switching is a one-line model-string change, so you can route a fraction of traffic to each and compare bills directly.

Do Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 support prompt caching?

Yes - both bill cached reads below their input rate, so warm-prefix workloads cost less than the list rates suggest. The exact cache-read rows are in the pricing table above.

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