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, 4 months after the other
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini vs Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8
Neither wins outright: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is the pick when cost matters at scale, Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 when you need to fit long inputs in one request.
Key numbers
| Spec | AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini | Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 |
|---|---|---|
| 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) | 1M tokens (~1,500 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 48% | 69% |
| Max output per response | 33K tokens (~24,600 words) | 128K tokens (~96,000 words) |
| Input types | text | text, image, file |
| Output types | text | text |
| Free variant | No | No |
| Listed since | 2026-09-23 | 2026-05-27 |
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 4.8 | 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 4.8 | 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 4.8: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-08-06.
Which should you choose?
Choose Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 if…
- you need to fit long inputs in one request — 1M tokens is roughly 1,500 pages, against 393
- 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 128K tokens (about 96,000 words) per response
Frequently asked questions
Is AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini better than Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8?
Neither wins outright: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is the pick when cost matters at scale, Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 when you need to fit long inputs in one request. In short: AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini when cost matters at scale, you want the newer model; Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 when you need to fit long inputs in one request, 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 4.8?
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 4.8 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 4.8 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 4.8?
Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8: 1M tokens, about 1,500 pages, against 262K (about 393 pages) for AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini.
Do AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 support function calling and JSON output?
Tool calling — AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: yes, Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8: yes. JSON-schema structured output — AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini: yes, Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8: yes.
Can AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 read images?
Only Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 accepts image input; AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini is text-only for input.
Is AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini or Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 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 4.8?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini can write up to 33K tokens (about 24,600 words) per response; Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 up to 128K (about 96,000 words).
When were AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini and Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 released?
AionLabs: Aion 3.5 Mini was listed on 2026-09-23; Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 on 2026-05-27.
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 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 is Anthropic's most capable generally available model in the Opus family. It supports text, image, and file inputs with text output, with reasoning support and a 1M-token...
Full Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 specs →