Choose Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 if…
- cost matters at scale — it is 41% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($1,750 vs $2,925 a month for 50,000 support chats)
- you want the newer model — released 2026-09-01, 4 months after the other
Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 vs OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch)
Neither wins outright: Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 is the pick when cost matters at scale, OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) when you need seed (reproducible sampling).
Key numbers
| Spec | Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 | OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | OpenAI |
| Input price (per 1M tokens) | $10.00 | $15.00 |
| Output price (per 1M tokens) | $50.00 | $90.00 |
| Blended price (3:1 input/output) | $20.00 | $33.75 |
| Cheaper than … of all models we track | 3% | 2% |
| Context window | 1M tokens (~1,500 pages) | 1.1M tokens (~1,575 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 69% | 92% |
| Max output per response | 128K tokens (~96,000 words) | 128K tokens (~96,000 words) |
| Input types | text, image, file | file, image, text |
| Output types | text | text |
| Free variant | No | No |
| Listed since | 2026-09-01 | 2026-04-24 |
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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) | Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 | OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens) | $1,750 | $2,925 | Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 saves $1,175 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens) | $1,700 | $2,700 | Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 saves $1,000 |
| 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) | $1,800 | $2,880 | Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 saves $1,080 |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens) | $1,100 | $1,740 | Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 saves $640 |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens) | $550 | $840 | Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 saves $290 |
Capabilities side by side
| Capability | Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 | OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) | 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 | ✓ Yes | read screenshots, charts and scanned pages |
| Audio input | — | — | take speech or audio directly |
| File / PDF input | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | accept documents without your own parsing step |
| Image output | — | — | generate images, not just text |
| Built-in web search | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | answer from live web results |
| Seed (reproducible sampling) | — | ✓ Yes | 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
- Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-09-02.
- OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch): price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-08-07.
Which should you choose?
Choose OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) if…
- you need seed (reproducible sampling) — to repeat a generation for tests and evals; Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 does not advertise it
Frequently asked questions
Is Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 better than OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch)?
Neither wins outright: Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 is the pick when cost matters at scale, OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) when you need seed (reproducible sampling). In short: Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 when cost matters at scale, you want the newer model; OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) when you need seed (reproducible sampling).
Which is cheaper, Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 or OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch)?
Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 is cheaper: $20.00 vs $33.75 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 41% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $1,750 against $2,925.
How much do Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 and OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) cost per million tokens?
Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 costs $10.00 per 1M input tokens and $50.00 per 1M output tokens; OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) costs $15.00 input and $90.00 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 or OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch)?
OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch): 1.1M tokens, about 1,575 pages, against 1M (about 1,500 pages) for Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1.
Do Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 and OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) support function calling and JSON output?
Tool calling — Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1: yes, OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch): yes. JSON-schema structured output — Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1: yes, OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch): yes.
Can Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 or OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) read images?
Yes, both accept image input.
Is Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 or OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) free to use?
No free variant is listed for either; both are pay-per-token.
What is the maximum output length of Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 and OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch)?
Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 can write up to 128K tokens (about 96,000 words) per response; OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) up to 128K (about 96,000 words).
When were Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 and OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) released?
Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 was listed on 2026-09-01; OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) on 2026-04-24.
About the two models
Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1
Claude Fable 5.1 improves on Claude Fable 5 across the board, with the biggest gains in agentic coding, long-running agentic workflows, and knowledge work: long code refactors, front-end and visual...
Full Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.1 specs →OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch)
GPT-5.5 Pro is OpenAI’s high-capability model optimized for deep reasoning and accuracy on complex, high-stakes workloads. It features a 1M+ token context window (922K input, 128K output) with support for...
Full OpenAI: GPT-5.5 Pro (batch) specs →