🔍 Read the full analysis: OpenAI And Anthropic Trim Prices In A Fight For AI Customers on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
OpenAI and Anthropic have cut prices on several models, while reports describe OpenAI offering discounts to win business from Anthropic. Some customers report shifting usage or lower expected bills, but the widely cited 80% to 90% savings figure describes one company’s expected total cost reduction, not a general list-price discount.
OpenAI and Anthropic have reduced prices on several AI models in recent months, while an October 24 report by The Information says OpenAI is offering discounts to win customers from Anthropic. The moves matter to companies buying large volumes of AI, but the reported 80% to 90% savings refers to one customer’s expected overall cost reduction—not a general discount on OpenAI’s published prices.
Pricing pages and vendor announcements reviewed by ThorstenMeyerAI.com on October 26 show that OpenAI’s Sol model line fell from $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens in June to $2 and $10 for GPT-6.1 Sol in September. Its smaller Luna line went from $1 and $6 per million tokens to $0.10 and $0.50. These figures compare different model releases, rather than a price change to an identical model.
Anthropic also lowered prices across releases. Its Opus line moved from $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens for Opus 5 in July to $4 and $20 for Opus 5.5. Anthropic also reduced cache-read prices on some models; the source reports a 60% decrease for Opus 5.5. Cache pricing can affect workloads that repeatedly send conversation context, though savings depend on how a customer uses the model.
The Information’s report describes customer-specific offers, including a discount of more than 30% for Replit on a contract reportedly worth more than $100 million a year, and seats priced below $7 for a U.S. bank. DataCamp CEO Jonathan Cornelissen said OpenAI’s offer could cut his company’s AI costs by 80% to 90%. That figure is an expected reduction in total costs against DataCamp’s existing setup, not a reduction of that size from OpenAI’s list price.
Infographic 01 · The price slide
Four months, a fraction of the price.
What a million output tokens cost on each vendor’s price list, from the June previews to today. Bars show the price; shorter is cheaper.
OpenAI · output price per 1M tokens
List prices, standard tier
Anthropic · output price per 1M tokens
List prices, standard tier
Same scale in both panels. Fable 5.1 kept its $50 output price and cut cache reads instead.
The quieter cut: cache reads
matters most for agents
Cache-read price per 1M tokens, same scale in all three.
Woolf estimates cached tokens make up 96–99% of token spend in agentic coding. Anthropic says Opus 5.5 costs 40% less than Opus 5 and Fable 5.1 about 25% (up to about 45%) less than Fable 5 on typical workloads; those are vendor claims. Most rows compare a successor model with its predecessor. Anthropic’s newer tokenizer produces about 30% more tokens for the same text, so per-token prices are not directly comparable across vendors.
Sources: OpenAI API pricing (26 Oct 2026); OpenAI announcements (26 Jun–29 Sep 2026); Anthropic API pricing (26 Oct 2026); Anthropic announcements (30 Jun–22 Sep 2026); Vercel AI Gateway index (Oct 2026); Max Woolf (25 Oct 2026).
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Lower Bills, More Contract Leverage
The falling published prices and reported negotiated offers give companies more reason to compare providers and renegotiate contracts. For businesses with high token use or many employee seats, even differences in cache rates, included usage and discounts can affect total spending. The figures do not establish that every buyer can obtain the same terms: reported offers are tied to particular customers and deal circumstances.
Customer use may be shifting alongside prices. Rippling CEO Parker Conrad said OpenAI’s share of his company’s coding work rose from 16% in May to 52%, while Anthropic’s share fell from 57% to 18%. He attributed the change to cost. That is one company’s reported experience, not evidence of a market-wide shift or proof that price alone explains adoption.
For smaller organizations and individual subscribers, the monthly fee is only part of the picture. Changes to usage limits, seat minimums, credits and expiration rules can alter what a plan delivers without changing its headline price. Buyers need to compare the service they can actually use, not just the per-token rate or subscription charge.
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How the Price Cuts Unfolded
Data scientist Max Woolf published a timeline of model price changes on October 25. ThorstenMeyerAI.com says it checked the figures against vendor announcements and pricing pages retrieved the following day. The timeline spans launches and price adjustments from June to September, including OpenAI’s Luna reductions, Anthropic’s decision to keep Sonnet 5’s introductory pricing, and the launch of lower-priced successor models.
That timeline mixes new models, temporary promotions and changes to particular token rates. It should not be read as a like-for-like price comparison unless the model and service are held constant. Performance can also differ between releases; OpenAI’s description of GPT-6.1 Sol as offering “near-Astra intelligence for a fifth of the price” is the company’s claim, and the source says buyers should test models on their own workloads.
Contract terms are shifting as well. The source reports that Anthropic added capped, expiring API credits to its Max and Team plans and requires 20 seats for Enterprise. It also says OpenAI reduced the usage included with new $200 Pro subscriptions while keeping the monthly price unchanged. Those plan details can matter as much as lower list prices when customers calculate costs.
“OpenAI’s share of the company’s coding work rose from 16% in May to 52%, while Anthropic’s fell from 57% to 18%.”
— Rippling CEO Parker Conrad, as reported by The Information
What the Deal Reports Do Not Show
The reported customer offers do not establish the terms available to other buyers, and The Information’s article is paywalled. The source relies on its public summary and subsequent write-ups for details. It is also not clear how many companies received comparable discounts or how long those offers last.
The reported 80% to 90% figure is DataCamp’s expected total savings, not a standard price reduction, and the source does not provide the full calculation behind it. Replit’s relationship with Anthropic is also described differently in public accounts: Masad said the company was no longer working with Anthropic, while a person familiar with the partnership told TechCrunch it remained in place. Replit later said it was model agnostic and called OpenAI its preferred partner.
It remains unclear how much of the wider price movement reflects sustained lower costs, temporary promotions, successor models, or changes in what customers receive. The reported shifts in customer usage also do not show whether customers will stay with one provider or route different tasks to different models.
Track Terms Alongside Model Prices
Companies weighing a switch can compare current vendor pricing with their own usage records, including input, output and cached tokens, and request written details on discount duration, seat counts, usage allowances and credit expiry. Testing competing models on the same internal tasks can help separate price changes from differences in performance.
Subscribers should check plan limits and included usage when renewing or changing tiers, particularly where a provider has changed allowances without changing the monthly fee. Further vendor pricing updates, customer disclosures and contract details will show whether the recent offers become broader practice or remain individually negotiated deals.
Key Questions
Did OpenAI cut its prices by 90%?
No general 90% list-price cut is reported. DataCamp’s CEO said the offer could reduce his company’s total AI costs by 80% to 90% compared with its current setup. The source also describes specific customer discounts, including one above 30% for Replit.
Which OpenAI model prices fell?
The source reports that OpenAI’s Sol line went from $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens in June to $2 and $10 for GPT-6.1 Sol in September. Luna went from $1 and $6 to $0.10 and $0.50. The comparisons involve different model releases.
What changed in Anthropic’s pricing?
Anthropic’s Opus pricing moved from $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens for Opus 5 to $4 and $20 for Opus 5.5. The source also reports lower cache-read rates on some models and changes to credits and plan terms.
Are customers moving from Anthropic to OpenAI?
Some reported examples point to changes in customer use. Rippling CEO Parker Conrad said OpenAI’s share of coding work at his company rose to 52% from 16% in May, while Anthropic’s fell to 18% from 57%. Those figures are specific to Rippling and do not establish a market-wide trend.
What should AI buyers compare besides list prices?
Buyers should examine total usage costs, cache rates, seat minimums, included allowances, credit caps and expiration dates, as well as the model’s performance on their own tasks. Negotiated discounts may not be available on the same terms to every customer.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
