Choose AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini if…
- cost matters at scale — it is 91% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($80.50 vs $875 a month for 50,000 support chats)
- you want the newer model — released 2026-09-23, 10 months after the other
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini vs Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5
Neither wins outright: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is the pick when cost matters at scale, Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 when you need image input.
Key numbers
| Spec | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini | Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Aion Labs | Anthropic |
| Input price (per 1M tokens) | $0.70 | $5.00 |
| Output price (per 1M tokens) | $1.40 | $25.00 |
| Blended price (3:1 input/output) | $0.87 | $10.00 |
| Cheaper than … of all models we track | 42% | 5% |
| Context window | 262K tokens (~393 pages) | 200K tokens (~300 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 47% | 37% |
| Max output per response | 33K tokens (~24,600 words) | 64K tokens (~48,000 words) |
| Input types | text | file, image, text |
| Output types | text | text |
| Free variant | No | No |
| Listed since | 2026-09-23 | 2025-11-24 |
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What it costs for real workloads
Monthly cost at list price for five common workloads. Token counts per unit are stated so you can scale them to your own traffic. A workload that does not fit a model's context window is marked rather than priced.
| Workload (per month) | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini | Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens) | $80.50 | $875 | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini saves $795 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens) | $98.00 | $850 | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini saves $752 |
| Coding / tool-using agent 2,000 tasks — each a multi-step task with tool calls and file context (60,000 in / 6,000 out tokens) | $101 | $900 | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini saves $799 |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens) | $64.40 | $550 | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini saves $486 |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens) | $36.40 | $275 | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini saves $239 |
Capabilities side by side
| Capability | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini | Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 | What it lets you do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tool / function calling | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | call your APIs and run agent loops |
| Structured output (JSON schema) | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | return JSON that validates against your schema |
| Reasoning / thinking mode | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | spend extra tokens thinking before answering hard problems |
| Image input | — | ✓ Yes | read screenshots, charts and scanned pages |
| Audio input | — | — | take speech or audio directly |
| File / PDF input | — | ✓ Yes | accept documents without your own parsing step |
| Image output | — | — | generate images, not just text |
| Built-in web search | — | ✓ Yes | answer from live web results |
| Seed (reproducible sampling) | — | — | repeat a generation for tests and evals |
| Log-probabilities | — | — | read token confidence for classification and scoring |
From each model's published parameters and input/output types. “—” means not advertised, not proven absent.
Price history
- AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-09-24.
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-03-10.
Which should you choose?
Choose Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 if…
- you need image input — to read screenshots, charts and scanned pages; AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini does not advertise it
- you need file / PDF input — to accept documents without your own parsing step; AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini does not advertise it
- you need built-in web search — to answer from live web results; AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini does not advertise it
- you generate long outputs in one go — up to 64K tokens (about 48,000 words) per response
Frequently asked questions
Is AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini better than Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5?
Neither wins outright: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is the pick when cost matters at scale, Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 when you need image input. In short: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini when cost matters at scale, you want the newer model; Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 when you need image input, you need file / PDF input, you need built-in web search, you generate long outputs in one go.
Which is cheaper, AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is cheaper: $0.87 vs $10.00 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 91% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $80.50 against $875.
How much do AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 cost per million tokens?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini costs $0.70 per 1M input tokens and $1.40 per 1M output tokens; Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 costs $5.00 input and $25.00 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: 262K tokens, about 393 pages, against 200K (about 300 pages) for Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5.
Do AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 support function calling and JSON output?
Tool calling — AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: yes, Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5: yes. JSON-schema structured output — AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: yes, Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5: yes.
Can AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 read images?
Only Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 accepts image input; AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is text-only for input.
Is AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 free to use?
No free variant is listed for either; both are pay-per-token.
What is the maximum output length of AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini can write up to 33K tokens (about 24,600 words) per response; Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 up to 64K (about 48,000 words).
When were AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 released?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini was listed on 2026-09-23; Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 on 2025-11-24.
About the two models
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini
Aion 3.5 Mini is a multi-model roleplaying and storytelling system from AionLabs, built on the GLM family of models. It is the smaller, lower-cost sibling of Aion 3.5 and uses...
Full AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini specs →Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5
Claude Opus 4.5 is Anthropic’s frontier reasoning model optimized for complex software engineering, agentic workflows, and long-horizon computer use. It offers strong multimodal capabilities, competitive performance across real-world coding and...
Full Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5 specs →