Originally published at claudeguide.io/claude-api-cost-prompt-caching-break-even
Claude prompt caching: when it pays off and when it doesn't (2026 numbers)
Claude prompt caching breaks even at 1.28 reuses for the 5-minute cache and 4 reuses for the 1-hour cache — below those thresholds, you pay 25% more than not caching. Above them, you save up to 90% on input tokens. This post derives the break-even math from 2026 pricing and walks through six real workloads to show where caching wins, breaks even, and loses.
For the complete pricing table this analysis is based on, see Claude API pricing 2026.
The pricing (April 2026)
Per 1M tokens, in USD:
| Model | Input | Output | Cache write 5m | Cache write 1h | Cache read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opus 4.7 | $5 | $25 | $6.25 | $10 | $0.50 |
| Sonnet 4.6 | $3 | $15 | $3.75 | $6 | $0.30 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $1 | $5 | $1.25 | $2 | $0.10 |
Cache write 5m = 1.25x input price. Cache write 1h = 2x input price. Cache read = 0.1x input price.
The break-even formula
For a prefix of size P tokens reused N times:
-
Without cache:
N * P * input_price -
With cache:
1 * P * cache_write_price + N * P * cache_read_price
Caching is cheaper when:
N * P * input
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