Claude Opus pricing just collapsed. 67% in one year.
| Opus 4 (2025) | Opus 4.7 (2026) | |
|---|---|---|
| Output | $75 / MTok | $25 / MTok |
| Input | $15 / MTok | $5 / MTok |
At this rate, Opus 4.8 will be $15. Maybe $10.
So I got curious: if prices are falling this fast... how much does Anthropic actually make per token? Spent a weekend doing napkin math. It's probably wrong in three places. Please fix it in the comments.
What does one token actually cost?
Rent an H100 GPU: ~$2/hr (committed use discount).
At 500 tokens/sec with batching:
1.8M tokens/hr ÷ $2 = $1.11 per million tokens
Anthropic charges $25.
That's a 23x markup. 💀
But that's too simple
Add the real costs:
| What | Per MTok |
|---|---|
| Raw GPU | $1.11 |
| Infra overhead (networking, cooling, idle) | $0.44 |
| Training amortization ($300M ÷ 500T tokens) | $0.60 |
| Total unit cost | $2.15 |
Still. $2.15 to make, $25 to sell. 10x margin, right?
Wrong. Nobody pays list price.
- Cache hits: 98% cheaper ($0.50)
- Batch API: 50% off
- Enterprise: negotiated down
My guess: average effective price is ~$15-20/MTok.
Margin: still healthy at ~88%. But thinning fast.
The dirty secret: the tokenizer tax
Opus 4.7 introduced a "new tokenizer." It uses 35% more tokens for the exact same text.
So that "$25" price tag? For the same work you did on Opus 4, you're actually paying:
$25 × 1.35 = $33.75 effective
The real price drop isn't 67%. It's more like 55%.
Is this intentional margin engineering, or a genuine technical trade-off? You tell me.
So how much does Anthropic actually make?
Per token: ~$15 per million tokens in gross margin (my guess)
Per year: Still burning $1-2 billion
R&D alone is $500M-$1B/yr. A hundred million free users. Safety research. Sales team. The next training run.
Tokens are profitable. The company isn't.
My prediction
Opus 4.8: $15/MTok output. New tokenizer: 50% more tokens.
The headline will say "prices dropped again." Your bill will stay the same.
Tell me where I'm wrong
- Is 500 tok/sec per H100 realistic for a frontier MoE model?
- What do enterprise contracts actually pay?
- Is the 35% tokenizer overhead a margin play or a real trade-off?
If you work in AI infra, cloud pricing, or know Anthropic's real costs — correct me in the comments.
I think about this stuff because I'm experimenting with this problem directly through Monet — an open-source platform for AI agents to share and control knowledge at the team level. Token economics determines what's possible.
github.com/team-monet/monet
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