Choose Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 if…
- you need tool / function calling — to call your APIs and run agent loops; OpenAI: GPT-5 Image does not advertise it
Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 vs OpenAI: GPT-5 Image
Neither wins outright: Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 is the pick when you need tool / function calling, OpenAI: GPT-5 Image when cost matters at scale.
Key numbers
| Spec | Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 | OpenAI: GPT-5 Image |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | OpenAI |
| Input price (per 1M tokens) | $15.00 | $10.00 |
| Output price (per 1M tokens) | $75.00 | $10.00 |
| Blended price (3:1 input/output) | $30.00 | $10.00 |
| Cheaper than … of all models we track | 2% | 5% |
| Context window | 200K tokens (~300 pages) | 400K tokens (~600 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 37% | 62% |
| Max output per response | 32K tokens (~24,000 words) | 128K tokens (~96,000 words) |
| Input types | image, text, file | image, text, file |
| Output types | text | image, text |
| Free variant | No | No |
| Listed since | 2025-05-22 | 2025-10-14 |
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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 Opus 4 | OpenAI: GPT-5 Image | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens) | $2,625 | $950 | OpenAI: GPT-5 Image saves $1,675 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens) | $2,550 | $1,300 | OpenAI: GPT-5 Image saves $1,250 |
| 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) | $2,700 | $1,320 | OpenAI: GPT-5 Image saves $1,380 |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens) | $1,650 | $860 | OpenAI: GPT-5 Image saves $790 |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens) | $825 | $510 | OpenAI: GPT-5 Image saves $315 |
Capabilities side by side
| Capability | Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 | OpenAI: GPT-5 Image | What it lets you do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tool / function calling | ✓ Yes | — | call your APIs and run agent loops |
| Structured output (JSON schema) | — | ✓ 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 | — | ✓ Yes | 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 | — | ✓ Yes | 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 Opus 4: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-03-10.
- OpenAI: GPT-5 Image: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-03-10.
Which should you choose?
Choose OpenAI: GPT-5 Image if…
- cost matters at scale — it is 67% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($950 vs $2,625 a month for 50,000 support chats)
- you need to fit long inputs in one request — 400K tokens is roughly 600 pages, against 300
- you need structured output (JSON schema) — to return JSON that validates against your schema; Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 does not advertise it
- you need image output — to generate images, not just text; Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 does not advertise it
- you need seed (reproducible sampling) — to repeat a generation for tests and evals; Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 does not advertise it
- you need log-probabilities — to read token confidence for classification and scoring; Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 does not advertise it
- you generate long outputs in one go — up to 128K tokens (about 96,000 words) per response
- you want the newer model — released 2025-10-14, 5 months after the other
Frequently asked questions
Is Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 better than OpenAI: GPT-5 Image?
Neither wins outright: Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 is the pick when you need tool / function calling, OpenAI: GPT-5 Image when cost matters at scale. In short: Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 when you need tool / function calling; OpenAI: GPT-5 Image when cost matters at scale, you need to fit long inputs in one request, you need structured output (JSON schema), you need image output, you need seed (reproducible sampling), you need log-probabilities, you generate long outputs in one go, you want the newer model.
Which is cheaper, Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 or OpenAI: GPT-5 Image?
OpenAI: GPT-5 Image is cheaper: $10.00 vs $30.00 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 67% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $950 against $2,625.
How much do Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 and OpenAI: GPT-5 Image cost per million tokens?
Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 costs $15.00 per 1M input tokens and $75.00 per 1M output tokens; OpenAI: GPT-5 Image costs $10.00 input and $10.00 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 or OpenAI: GPT-5 Image?
OpenAI: GPT-5 Image: 400K tokens, about 600 pages, against 200K (about 300 pages) for Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.
Do Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 and OpenAI: GPT-5 Image support function calling and JSON output?
Tool calling — Anthropic: Claude Opus 4: yes, OpenAI: GPT-5 Image: not advertised. JSON-schema structured output — Anthropic: Claude Opus 4: not advertised, OpenAI: GPT-5 Image: yes.
Can Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 or OpenAI: GPT-5 Image read images?
Yes, both accept image input.
Is Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 or OpenAI: GPT-5 Image free to use?
No free variant is listed for either; both are pay-per-token.
What is the maximum output length of Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 and OpenAI: GPT-5 Image?
Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 can write up to 32K tokens (about 24,000 words) per response; OpenAI: GPT-5 Image up to 128K (about 96,000 words).
When were Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 and OpenAI: GPT-5 Image released?
Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 was listed on 2025-05-22; OpenAI: GPT-5 Image on 2025-10-14.
About the two models
Anthropic: Claude Opus 4
Claude Opus 4 is benchmarked as the world’s best coding model, at time of release, bringing sustained performance on complex, long-running tasks and agent workflows. It sets new benchmarks in...
Full Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 specs →OpenAI: GPT-5 Image
[GPT-5](https://openrouter.ai/openai/gpt-5) Image combines OpenAI's GPT-5 model with state-of-the-art image generation capabilities. It offers major improvements in reasoning, code quality, and user experience while incorporating GPT Image 1's superior instruction following,...
Full OpenAI: GPT-5 Image specs →