Claude Opus 4.5 Explained: Features, Benchmarks, and Pricing 2025

What Makes Claude Opus 4.5 So Special

With the release of **Claude Opus 4.5** on November 24, 2025, Anthropic has raised the bar for all Large Language Models (LLMs) in code generation and agentic capabilities. The model surpasses its predecessor, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, as well as competitors like GPT-5.1 and Gemini 3 in key areas.

• **Record Performance:** The first model to achieve over **80%** on the highly competitive **SWE-bench Verified** benchmark.
• **Increased Agentic Intelligence:** Thanks to "**Thinking Block Preservation**," the model retains its entire internal reasoning process across complex, long interactions.
• **Cost Optimization:** Despite massive performance gains, the input price has been lowered compared to older Opus versions.

🔬 The Groundbreaking Core Features

1. Thinking Block Preservation

This is the most important architectural innovation. Opus 4.5 is capable of saving its reasoning path (the "Thinking Block") within the context, rather than discarding it after each output. The result:

The model "learns" from its own debugging process. For complex, multi-step tasks (e.g., debugging a bug across 10 files), it makes fewer redundant errors and completes tasks faster.

2. The "Effort Parameter"

Developers can now control, via the API or the **Claude Code CLI**, how deeply the model should "think" before responding. This allows for a better balance between cost and quality.

3. Enhanced Computer Use & Zoom Action

Claude's ability to perform visual tasks on a screen has been massively improved. The new **Zoom Action** allows Opus 4.5 to focus on specific pixel areas within screenshots. This is crucial for tasks like:

• UI Debugging (e.g., "Figure out why this button is cut off on mobile devices.")
• Interacting with complex web tools or GUIs whose layouts are difficult to interpret.

📊 Opus 4.5 Comparison: The Benchmarks

Opus 4.5 was developed to further close the gap to human developers. Its performance is particularly outstanding in the areas of code and agentic workflows.

Performance Comparison (November 2025)

💰 Pricing and Availability

Anthropic has simplified API accessibility while making the cost structure for Opus more attractive.

API Pricing (per 1 Million Tokens)

• **Input Tokens:** **$5.00 USD**
• **Output Tokens:** **$25.00 USD**

This price adjustment makes the "High Effort" mode of Opus 4.5 particularly appealing for companies willing to pay slightly more for the highest intelligence, yet still aiming to reduce overall costs.

Availability

1. **API:** Immediately available via the endpoint claude-opus-4-5-20251101.
2. **Claude Code:** Integrated into the new CLI tool and the VS Code Extension.
3. **Cloud Platforms:** Soon available via AWS Bedrock and Google Cloud Vertex AI.

🎓 Next Steps for Developers

The release of Opus 4.5 requires developers to adjust their workflow strategies:

• Start with our Claude Code CLI Setup Guide.
• Experiment with the --effort high parameter to fully utilize the capabilities of Thinking Blocks.
• Integrate Opus 4.5 into your CI/CD pipeline to enable autonomous bug fixing and code review.

❓ FAQ about Claude Opus 4.5

What is the main difference from Claude Sonnet 4.5?

Opus 4.5 is the flagship model, optimized for complex logic, math, and code. Sonnet 4.5 is faster and cheaper, ideal for high throughput and routine tasks.

Can I use Opus 4.5 for non-code tasks?

Absolutely. Although optimized for code, the increased reasoning capability (Thinking Blocks) also leads to superior performance in legal analysis, mathematical problems, and strategic decision-making.

Do I need to send all my code to Anthropic?

No. When using the Claude Code CLI, you can restrict file access permissions so that only the relevant files for the current task are sent to the API. Code data is not used for training the model by default.