Anthropic · Free
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Balanced Intelligence
Context window
200K
tokens
Max output
64K
tokens
Tier
Free
access
Pricing
Input
$3.00
per 1M tokens
Output
$15.00
per 1M tokens
Overview
Overview
Claude Sonnet 4.6 offers the best balance of intelligence, speed, and cost for most use cases. With exceptional performance in coding and agentic workflows, it's the recommended starting point for exploring Claude's capabilities.
Best Use Cases
✅ Recommended For
- Coding & Development: Exceptional performance in software development tasks
- Complex Agents: Multi-step agentic workflows with tool orchestration
- General Purpose: Versatile for a wide range of applications
- Production Applications: Reliable performance for mission-critical systems
⚠️ Consider Alternatives For
- Simple Tasks: Haiku provides faster responses for basic queries
- Maximum Intelligence: Opus offers deeper reasoning for research tasks
Technical Highlights
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Context Window | 200K tokens (1M in beta) |
| Max Output | 64K tokens |
| Pricing | $3 / $15 per MTok (in/out) |
| Knowledge Cutoff | January 2025 |
| Extended Thinking | ✅ Full support |
| Tool Use | ✅ Advanced orchestration |
| Vision | ✅ Text and image input |
| Latency | Fast |
Capabilities
- Balanced
- Coding
- Agents
Recommended for
- Coding
- Complex Agents
- General Purpose